


Wake Up Wokingham

by Fancy_Ravenclaw



Category: Danisnotonfire and AmazingPhil, Video Blogging & YouTube RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-28
Updated: 2014-07-20
Packaged: 2018-01-14 02:47:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 60,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1249897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fancy_Ravenclaw/pseuds/Fancy_Ravenclaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan Howell has to learn how to deal with being the only one on earth to know that everyone is being controlled by a higher power. Fortunately, he has Phil Lester to help him with this, and maybe together they could change the situation forever. Maybe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by [Jasmine](http://zamettar.tumblr.com). She's fantastic.

Snow decorated the roofs of the now dark city. Wokingham wasn’t a lively city at night, especially not on weekdays. Who would be crazy enough to go outside in the middle of the night and defy the cold, the snow and the dark? 17 year old Daniel Howell was. His determined footsteps sank away in the deep layer of snow on the pavement as he made his way to the local warehouse. None of the other shops would be open at this hour, he knew. The warehouse was part of a national chain and therefore had the same business hours as the ones in London.

Dan’s thoughts started to wander and he couldn’t care enough to call himself back to reality. He’d never said it out loud, but he found Wokingham a horribly boring city. His mum loved it here; he could hardly tell her that he hated it. See now London, that was a real city. A city that never slept. Wokingham seemed to have a bedtime of around nine pm. But in London everything just continued rolling after dark. The Underground, the shops, the cafes and the people of course. The children made room for the teens and adults, and the chatter about school and work made room for chatter about booze and drugs.  
Dan didn’t usually go outside after dinner. To be honest, he mostly avoided going outside in general. He was not what you’d call a very active person. He spent most of his time in his room with his computer, watching YouTube videos and scrolling through Twitter.

As he walked up to the tall building he mentally walked through the store, looking for folders. He was supposed to hand in an essay, – and for once he did do the essay – but there were literally no folders at home. He could hardly hand in a messy pile of paper, could he? He knew his mum would preach for at least an hour if she knew that he hadn’t thought ahead and bought folders a few days back. That’s why he couldn’t go buy them in the morning, before school; his mum would be up.  
The cashier gave him a look when he walked in, but Dan pretended that he didn’t see him. The office supplies –which he figured was where the folders would be- were in the back of the store. He made sure to take a route that involved the cashier losing sight of him as quick as possible, and he added to it by walking fast. As soon as he walked into the aisle he saw them on one of the shelves. He let out a relieved sigh; at least this trip hadn’t been for nothing. He paid for them and managed to not look the cashier in the eyes even once and luckily the guy didn’t attempt to hold a conversation.  
With the folders under his arm –he should have taken a bag with him, stupid, stupid, stupid- he started making his way back home.

Soundless footsteps slowly walked around the frozen boy, no sinking into the snow, the man didn’t want to get his shoes wet. “You know,” The man began softly, “You’re lucky I decided to let you go tonight.” He stopped walking and looked into the boy’s eyes. “Your mum would have flipped if you went out tomorrow morning.” He grinned to himself and started walking again. “You’d have to agree, Daniel, your life is pretty boring. Should we mess things up a bit? Just for fun?” The boy didn’t reply. Of course he didn’t. Evzynn put his index and middle finger to Dan’s forehead, closed his eyes for a second and then smiled whilst pulling his hand back. “See, now this is going to be fun, Daniel. Just wait and you’ll see.” He snapped his fingers and Dan started walking in fast motion till he reached the end of the pavement, where he had to cross the road. He pulled out his phone and started scrolling through his texts, wanting to text one of his friends to tell them that he got the folders.

Evzynn strolled after him, and was now standing beside him. A white van turned the corner and came at them at a rapid pace. “Go for it, Daniel.” Evzynn encouraged. And even though Dan couldn’t hear him, he stepped onto the road. The distance between the van and him got smaller and smaller, but he had his eyes on his phone and his hearing was compromised by the cold wind spinning around him.  
It happened quickly, the driver of the van let his horn blare and Dan got exactly one second to stare into the bright lights of the oncoming vehicle before being violently thrown onto the asphalt.

Dan saw himself as a young child, buying ice cream, drawing that one picture which he was still proud of to this day, playing with the neighbours kid and unwrapping presents on his birthday. He watched himself, older this time, doing homework and sitting at McDonalds with his friends, taking his GCSE’s and throwing a fit because his parents wouldn’t let him go to a Muse concert. He saw it all, his entire life up to that point flashed before his eyes. Wasn’t that what happened when you died? Was he dying? Suddenly he noticed a man, this guy was just standing behind him in every single one of the memories he was seeing. Was he hallucinating? Was his mind making up things that had never actually happened? He dug around in his mind, but no matter what he did, he really did not recognize this man. ‘Your mind doesn’t make up faces, in your dreams you see faces of people you’ve seen. Even though you’ve just rapidly walked past them in the supermarket.’ Dan knew, but trying to focus on placing this guy, but it was hard to concentrate on thinking when a constant stream of memories was flowing through him and he couldn’t stop seeing the pictures of his childhood.

With every passing memory the picture of the man got brighter and more obvious. He went from standing beside him to standing next to him, even putting his hand on Dan’s shoulder in some of them. He tried to stop it, stop the memories from occupying his every fibre, but they wouldn’t stop coming, and he even started seeing ones which he didn’t remember happening. It was like every locked door in his mind had roughly been pulled from its hinges and the memories it had locked behind it were now free to flow through his mind. The chaos was complete when multiple memories at the same time started playing, the voices of the people in them were bashing against his skull as if they were trying to get out of the head which was too full to house them all. His head started pounding, softly at first, but becoming louder and more painful with every passing second. The face became clear amidst the memories. It looked like it was pushing the memories aside, trying to claim all of Dan’s attention. Dan tried to look past it. He wanted the memories back, they’d scared him at first, got him thinking that he was dying, but they were definitely much better than this face that was invading his mind.  
A voice came in suddenly. It seemed to come from outside of his head. He tried clinging to the voice desperately. His mind was a prison and the voice was his only grip on the safe outside world.  
The face and the memories disappeared just as abruptly as they’d showed up. They were gone before Dan knew it and with a shock he opened up his eyes and shot up. The bright light burned his eyes, but he didn’t dare closing his eyes, afraid of the face and the memories.

“Daniel!” His mother’s voice called him back to reality. His mother. Of course it was his mother. The voice which had been his grip on reality had been his mother’s. Now that he was awake it seemed obvious, but somehow he hadn’t recognized it among the chaos in his mind.  
“Mum.” He choked out, voice hoarse.  
“Dan, good God. Are you okay?”  
He opened his mouth to reply, but a salty tear slipped from his cheek into his mouth and hit his tongue. The salty taste made him close his mouth. He raised his hand to touch his cheek. His face was burning and wet from the tears. He’d been crying.  
“You were screaming and crying Dan, were you having a nightmare?” She asked, grabbing his hand and squeezing it softly.  
Dan turned his head to look at her. Her face was red, her eyes puffy from crying, but her being with him still calmed him down.  
“I’m fine.” He lied.  
“Do you remember what happened?” A male voice from Dan’s right asked.  
He turned face who he presumed was a doctor. But before he could fully focus his attention, by the door he saw another figure standing beside his bed. Smug grin on his pale face, arms crossed and leaning against the wall with one shoulder.  
“Do you Daniel? Do you remember?” The man asked.

It was him. It was him. It was him.  
This was the face he’d been seeing in his mind. The face that had been breaking down his memories to make room for it to take Dan’s attention away from them. There he was. Standing there looking at them.

“Wh- who is he?” Dan stuttered.  
His mum and the doctor exchanged glances, “Who, sweetie?” His mum asked, hesitant.  
Dan shot both adults a disbelieving look, “What do you mean ‘Who?' That guy there! Who is he?!” He was shouting at this point. Not understanding how the others couldn’t see this guy who was clearly standing in his hospital room.  
“Daniel, Daniel, Daniel, you might want to stop this. They’ll just think you’re hallucinating. See, you’re not supposed to be seeing me.” The man said, stepping away from the wall and tilting his head, “You wouldn’t want to get drugged, would you? Do you want to go back to the world of memories and faces, Daniel?”  
Dan couldn’t do anything but stare at him, eyes wide and mouth hanging open, “Nothing. Never mind. I’m tired and I have a headache. I’m just seeing things that aren’t there.” He said quickly, forcing a smile toward the doctor who was eyeing him with a concerned look.  
“Are you sure you’re okay?” He asked.  
“Yeah, yeah. Just a headache that’s all.”  
“Okay, so do you remember what happened that got you here?”  
Dan shot a quick look toward the man still standing beside his bed and replied “I got hit by a car. I was texting.”  
“So was the driver of the van that hit you.”  
“Yeah, how is he doing?”  
“He’s fine. In shock, obviously. But no physical harm.”

“And how am I doing?”  
A smile played on the doctor’s lips for a second before he quickly got himself back together and put his serious face back on, “You are doing okay. You’re lucky, you could have died. You got away with abrasions, a cut in your right arm and a concussion, which probably explains you seeing things.”  
“Yes, that explains it.” Dan was eager to agree, taking any explanation that didn’t involve him going crazy. He tried to ignore the man, but he had such a smug look that Dan couldn’t help but feel the urge to punch him in his stupid face. As the doctor checked the machines connected to him by the stickers on his chest, Dan quietly listened to his mum rambling about how scared she’d been and how he wasn’t to ever do something like this again.

“Where are dad and Adrian?” Dan suddenly interrupted her when the doctor had left the room.  
“At home. It’s five am, we didn’t want Adrian to wake up to an empty house so your dad stayed with him.” His mum replied after a silence in which she looked caught off guard.  
“It's five am? Mum, you should go home and sleep as well. I’ll be fine, really. I’m in the hospital, remember? What could I possibly do to endanger myself?”  
“Are you sure, sweetie? You don’t have to say that because you feel guilty. I don’t mind being here at all.”  
“How long have you been here?”  
“Since just after midnight.” She replied.  
Dan gave her a smile which he hoped was reassuring and nodded, “See, you’ve been here since forever. Go home mum, I promise I won’t do anything stupid. I’ll just stay in this bed, alright?”  
“Okay then.” His mum hesitated, “Will you call a nurse when you have to use the restroom?”  
“Yes mum. Go. I’ll be fine.”  
She nodded and got up from her chair and stretched. She’d probably been sitting there ever since she arrived at the hospital five hours ago.

As soon as she’d closed the door behind her Dan turned to the man who’d been watching everyone with that same smug grin on his face. “Who are you?”  
“No one. You’re hallucinating.”  
“Like shit I am. I’m not crazy. Tell me who you are.”  
The man held up his hands in surrender, “Okay, okay. I was just joking. Bad temper much?” He pulled a chair to him and sat down. “Alright Daniel.” He started, “My name Is Evzynn. I’m your Elik.”  
“What do you mean my... My what?”  
Evzynn tutted, “Come come Daniel, has your mummy never told you that interrupting people is rude? Or should I say Elikae?” He laughed at his own joke.  
“What are you on about?” Dan questioned.  
Evzynn’s smile immediately disappeared and made room for an annoyed look, “Alright Daniel, let me explain you a thing. I am an Elik. The plural of Elik is Elikae. I control your every decision. But only if I feel like it, that is. I could change your mind on what colour T-shirt you want to wear, but that’s boring, you see. I prefer the bigger decisions, like if you should pull out your phone to text your friends whilst crossing the road.”  
“You made me do that?” Dan didn’t believe a word this guy was saying. Who was he to walk into Dan’s hospital room and announce that he controlled him?  
“Why yes I did.” He patted Dan’s head, “You’re not the quickest thinker, are you?”  
“Hey, shut your mouth. I’ve got a concussion. I am allowed to not think quickly.”  
Evzynn smiled, “Didn’t make you lose your wit, I see.”  
“So why can I suddenly see you? Why did I see all those memories with you in them, even though I swear you weren’t there at the time?”  
“The concussion.” The man simply stated, “It knocked up some things in your brain, so that you now have the ability to see me.”  
They were both quiet for a few moments, before Evzynn spoke up and asked, in a voice that sounded less mocking than during his previous words. “What’s on your mind, kiddo?”  
“I honestly hope I’m just hallucinating because of this concussion.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Hey, hey. Remember me?”

Dan turned around so fast that the wheels of his office chair couldn’t keep up and he tumbled forward, landing on his face. “Jesus Christ.” He mumbled, pushing the chair off him.  
“Nope, just me. Sorry to disappoint.” Evzynn replied cheerily.  
“You are in an awfully good mood.” Dan hoisted himself up and put the chair back on its wheels.  
“I am indeed. I’ve got this small thing that I want you to do and I could of course try to bribe you, but hey, as I am an Elik, I can just make you do it! Isn’t that convenient?” Evzynn raised his arm to put his fingers against Dan’s forehead, but the boy dodged his movement and shook his head, “Excuse me?”  
“Yeah, I need you to do a thing for me, so if you could please let me place this thought into your head, that would be very much appreciated. I’ve had enough misfortune already by finding out that I can’t freeze you anymore. So co-operate.”

“What do you want to do to me?” Dan asked suspiciously.  
“Oh, just a small thing. You will hardly notice!”  
“Yeah right.” And as Dan rolled his eyes at him, Evzynn quickly pushed his hand forward and pressed his fingers against his skin.

“Do you mind?!” Dan shouted, stepping back until the back of his knees hit the office chair that was still behind him. After his encounter with Evzynn in the hospital Dan hadn’t seen the Elik anymore and he assumed that he really had been hallucinating. He wasn’t on meds anymore now and his dizziness and headaches from the concussion had faded a few months ago as well. There was no other excuse as to why he was seeing Evzynn again. Besides of course the possibility that he actually existed. Dan wasn’t sure if he could trust his own eyes anymore at this point, or his own mind, for that matter.  
“It- it didn’t work.” Evzynn stuttered softly as he withdrew his hand. “Why didn’t it work? I don’t understand.”  
I’m just hallucinating. I’m just hallucinating. I’m just hallucinating. Dan recited the sentence in his mind, willing himself to start believing the words.

“Close your eyes.”  
“Why would I do that for?”

“Close your freaking eyes, Daniel.” The fact that he’d raised his voice at him and that his face seemed to scream “I will murder you singlehandedly” made Dan quickly close his eyes. He felt two cold fingers against his forehead. Everything went black for a fraction of a second. His hearing cut out, his thought process stopped and he couldn’t feel anything except for a flash in his mind. But before he even realised that the flash hurt it was over, and the fingers disappeared from his forehead.  
“Did it work?” He’d never been quite so relieved to hear someone speak.  
“Did- did what work?” He asked.  
Evzynn cursed, “I thought it’d work if you couldn’t see me.”  
“What were you trying to make me do?” Dan asked him, now more curious than scared.  
“I was trying to implant the thought into your head that you wanted to befriend Philip Lester.”  
Dan laughed, “Are you joking?”  
Evzynn shot him a confused look.  
“I am a fan of Phil. Every fan would want to befriend their idol. It didn’t work because I already wanted it.”  
“Can I try if it my powers do still work?” Evzynn asked whilst at the same time trying to comprehend the fact that Dan had taken a Plot Twist, as putting a thought into a human’s mind was called by Elikae, without Evzynn wanting him to.

“How?” Dan asked.  
“I’m going to put a really stupid thought into your mind. Like, you get the sudden urge to go grab that sock that’s lying beside your bed. Just to see if it still works.”  
“You swear you’re going to put that thought into my mind and not something else?”  
“If that makes you say yes, then sure. Yes. I swear.”  
“Okay. Then do it.”  
Evzynn raised his arm once more and put his fingers against Dan’s head. The boy stared up at him intensely, watching his every move. But nothing happened. When Evzynn pulled his hand back Dan felt like picking the sock up just as much as the past few days –hence it had been laying in the same spot for a little over a week-.  
“And?” Evzynn asked.  
“Nothing.” Dan replied, “Not the slightest urge.”  
“Okay, let’s try the closed eyes thing again. Close your eyes.”

Dan complied, and felt Evzynn’s fingers against his forehead. This time something did happen. The dark and the flash made a reappearance in his mind, and when he opened his eyes back up, the fact that that sock was lying in the middle of the room suddenly bothered him a lot, and he got up to remove it.  
“So it only works when you can’t see me.” Evzynn concluded as Dan picked up the sock and put it in the laundry basket in the corner of his bedroom.  
Dan nodded, “Okay, that’s great and all, but what were you saying about befriending Phil?”  
“Oh yeah,” Evzynn said, sitting down in Dan’s office chair, “As a sign of friendship and companionship Elikae have their humans become friends. I’ve just befriended Erazniel, Phil’s Elik.”  
“You mean there are more Elikae?” Dan asked. And to his surprise Evzynn started laughing, “Of course there are more. Every human has an Elik. Did you really think you were the only one? That’s a bit selfish of you, Daniel.”

A blush crept onto Dan’s cheeks. Of course there were more, he thought to himself. Every single human had an Elik. Every single human was controlled by an Elik. Was he friends with the humans or with their Elikae? Why did bad things happen when Elikae could literally make humans’ lives perfect?  
“Now, I’ve done what I came for. You’re going to befriend Phil, that’s great. Goodbye Daniel.”  
“No, wait.” He suddenly blurted out, “Can you like, convince my mind that I am motivated to study for my exams?”  
Evzynn chuckled, “There are not a lot of things I can’t implant into your mind, but I can’t create motivation out of the blue.”  
“Then steal it from someone and give it to me?” Dan suggested.  
“I like the way you think, but I’m afraid you’re going to have to do this one on your own.”  
Suddenly his mum’s voice interrupted their conversation: “Daniel, who are you talking to?”

Dan panicked, who was he talking to? His mum, of course, couldn’t see Evzynn. She wasn’t to know that he existed. He heard her footsteps come up the stairs. She was going to come into his room in approximately five seconds, he reckoned. “I’m on the phone, mum.” He shouted back, whilst desperately searching his room for his phone.  
“With whom?” His mum replied. She was now at the top of the stairs. A few more meters and she’d reached Dan’s room. “With er- Jake.” He said. He finally found his phone, lying underneath the pile of questionably smelling clothes beside his bed. He pressed it to his ear just as his mum walked in. “Yeah, no. I did do it, but I got admitted to the hospital, remember? So she made me hand it in later. Do you have a second? My mum just walked in.”

His mum looked tired. Her hair was messy and she had a bucket and a mop in her hands. “How’s Jake doing anyway? I haven’t seen him around here in ages.”  
“Er- yeah. He’s doing well. School and stuff, you know?”  
To his relief his mum nodded understandingly, “Are you studying for your last exams?” She asked.  
“Yes. Yeah. I’ll get back at it in a few minutes.”  
“How are you managing?”  
“Yeah very well. So er- are you cleaning?” He asked, trying to change the subject.  
She nodded in reply, “I’ll get back to it as well. Don’t stay on the phone for too long!”  
She left the room, closing the door behind her and Evzynn gave Dan his infamous smug grin. He’d been watching the scene unfold from the office chair and had laughed at Dan’s awkward stuttered replies to his mum’s questions about Jake and exams. Dan made sure that he’d heard his mum go back downstairs before turning to Evzynn, “Okay, I think she believed me.” He put his phone down on his nightstand and waved his hand at Evzynn, motioning for him to get off his chair.  
“Right, it’s time for me to get going anyway. Good luck studying.”  
Dan shot him a death glare, “Bye Evzynn.”  
“Yup. Okay. Bye Daniel.”  
And then he was gone, and Dan was left to himself and his books. He sat back down in his chair, and started looking through the book that had been lying untouched in the exact same spot for about two hours.  
This was going to be a long day.

“Alright everyone! Please place your bags by the door and do NOT take them with you to your desk. Don’t forget to take a pen with you though. You’re still here to do an exam, after all.”  
Annoyed glances were shot his way, but Dan was not one of them. His hands were shaking as he opened up his bag and took out a pen. “Good luck dude.” Someone patted his shoulder. “Yeah, you too.” He replied without even knowing who it was. After putting his bag down by the others he started looking for the table with his name on it.  
The exams were held in the gym. The entire hall was filled with neat rows of desks, all labelled with the name of one of the students who was going to be taking an exam today. If Dan was honest with himself, he knew he should have –and could have- studied way harder than he’d done now. He knew that telling himself that he would study for his next exam for the rest of the day would be unnecessary; he simply didn’t have the discipline or the motivation to spend hours learning about stuff that he didn’t care about.  
He finally found his desk –in the middle of the freaking room, whose idea was that?- and sat down.  
He wrote down his name as most desks were taken now, and one of the teachers was just picking up the pile of exams, and started handing them out. Complete silence fell across the room as the first students started taking their exams.

By the time he pushed open the front door of his house he had convinced himself that he had completely failed this exam and that this was his end. He ran up the stairs to avoid having to talk to his mum and locked himself in his room. He put his bag down, and whilst his computer was starting up he took off his jacket and trainers and added them to the pile of clothes.  
The first thing he saw when his computer had started was that he had a notification on Twitter. With half an eye whilst trying to plug his earphones into his computer he clicked on the notification and quickly read it.

@AmazingPhil 1h  
@Danisnotonfire Hey Dan, read on ur Twitter that u were going to  
ur first exam. U back yet? How’d it go?

Dan immediately left his earphones to what they were and turned fully to his computer.

@Danisnotonfire now  
@AmazingPhil Yeh I just got home. Didn’t go as well as I wanted it to but it was ok  
How u been?

Had –what did Evzynn call him again- implanted the thought into Phil’s mind that he wanted to befriend Dan? This whole Elikae thing suddenly seemed a lot less bad. He stared at his computer screen for a few moments, waiting for it to indicate him that he’d gotten a new notification, but then he realised that he had been in the process of plugging in his headphones and quickly turned back to doing just that.  
When he looked back up, Phil had replied to him.

@AmazingPhil 20s  
@Danisnotonfire been good. How’ve u been? We shuld rly talk more!!

Erazniel, he realised. That was what Evzynn had called Phil’s Elik. How did the whole implanting usually go again? He’d freeze Phil first, then put his fingers to his forehead and implant the thought into Phil’s mind by doing that. Dan wondered if you still felt the flash when you were frozen. Though you wouldn’t remember being frozen and seeing your Elik, so no one would remember the flash anyway. 

@Danisnotonfire now  
@AmazingPhil yeh ive been good too. And yes we should!! R u busy?

@AmazingPhil 10s  
@Danisnotonfire lil bit. Editing my new video. U r a welcome  
distraction tho :P

He was actually having a conversation with Phil Lester. And Phil apparently even enjoyed talking to him. Had Erazniel made him do this or was it from his own accord? If a human had power over an Elik to make him do what he wanted they basically had the whole world at their feet, Dan realised.

@Danisnotonfire now  
@AmazingPhil cant wait 2 see ur new video. I bet its gonna be great  
Ur videos are always great

@AmazingPhil now  
@Danisnotonfire r u flirting with me?

@Danisnotonfire now  
@AmazingPhil yes ;)

@AmazingPhil now  
@Danisnotonfire naughty boy ;P ugh this editing program is messing  
up the format of my video

If he could just keep Phil talking it was almost as if they were already friends.


	3. Chapter 3

@AmazingPhil 10s  
@Danisnotonfire 12 am exactly!! Happy birthday Dan!! U r now an adult!

@Danisnotonfire now  
@AmazingPhil thank u! I feel so mature all of a sudden ..

Dan was sat behind his computer, wearing sweats and an old T-shirt and with a blanket draped over his shoulders. Phil had explicitly told him to stay up till at least midnight, because he wanted to be the first one to wish him a happy birthday.  
His brother had already gone to bed, but he could hear his dad walking around downstairs and his mum was probably watching TV.  
@AmazingPhil now  
@Danisnotonfire too bad uve still got another yr of high school in front of u

In the middle of typing out a reply he heard his mum come up the stairs and turned his head toward the door. He knew she was going to come in to tell him to go to bed. She did.  
“Happy birthday, Daniel. Time for bed now. Being 18 doesn’t mean no rules.” She smiled at him and he nodded in reply.  
She glanced at his screen for a second, recognizing the blue website, “Are you talking to Phil?”  
“Yes.”  
“So I wasn’t the first to wish you a happy birthday then.”  
“You weren’t.” Dan confirmed, “I’ll go to bed in a bit. Goodnight, mum.”  
“Goodnight.”  
As soon as she’d closed the door behind her Dan continued typing.  
@Danisnotonfire now  
@AmazingPhil yeh but only till February. Exams r in February. After  
that ive got the rest of the year to myself

@AmazingPhil now  
@Danisnotonfire u better graduate 

@Danisnotonfire now  
@AmazingPhil that’s the plan yes. I gotta go to bed now, my mum  
doesnt like when I stay up late

@AmazingPhil now  
@Danisnotonfire that’s adorable. Goodnight

@Danisnotonfire now  
@AmazingPhil gnight 

Against his mum’s will Dan had decided to not celebrate his birthday for the rest of the family. Spending and entire day trapped in the living room with a few dozen people wasn’t really his definition of a fun birthday.  
As he walked downstairs to get himself some cereal, his thoughts were with Phil. The older boy had wanted to get Dan a birthday present, and when asked Dan had replied that he wanted a Skype call for his birthday. Phil had replied that he’d set up a Skype account just for him. They hadn’t agrees on a specific time for the call yet, but just the fact that is was going to happen today got him nervous and excited enough. He hoped there wouldn’t be awkward silences, and of course that Phil liked him. On Twitter Dan was able to talk to him pretty easily, but that was because he had time to think up a good reply, in a real life conversation he had to reply within a few seconds or else he’d be regarded as strange. Humans had such weird definitions of strange, he realised. If you took too long to reply in a conversation people would immediately assume that you were dumb.

He let himself be hugged by his parents and brother in the kitchen, received his presents, prepared some cereal and went back upstairs, balancing his presents and breakfast in his hands. He kicked the door of his bedroom close before dumping his presents on his bed and sitting down at his desk with the bowl of cereal in front of him.  
@Danisnotonfire now  
@AmazingPhil u up?

He managed to put a few spoons of cereal in his mouth before clicking the interaction that showed up.  
@AmazingPhil now  
@Danisnotonfire yea. How’s ur birthday going? 

@Danisnotonfire now  
@AmazingPhil well my presents r currently lying on my bed and I  
am sittin at my desk with a bowl of cereal

@AmazingPhil 10s  
@Danisnotonfire u got a time in mind for the skype call? I just  
uploaded my new video so im free all day

@Danisnotonfire now  
@AmazingPhil if u have a second ill put on a decent shirt and start  
Skype. So how does 10 mins sound?

@AmazingPhil now  
@Danisnotonfire yeh that’s fine

Dan pushed his bowl of cereal aside and got up from the office chair. He mentally went through all the T-shirts he owned, trying to decide which one to wear. Getting dressed was so much harder with the knowledge that someone whom you wanted to impress was going to see you in the clothes you’d pick out. He decided upon a blue plaid button up shirt, which was one of the only pieces of clothing he owned that was still located in his wardrobe instead of somewhere in his bedroom or the clothing pile. Whilst Skype was starting he buttoned up his shirt and took a few deep breaths. He’d been fantasizing about this moment for months now and he hoped it would live up to his expectations. He figured he didn’t need to change out of his sweatpants, as Phil would only see him from his torso up. Phil was still offline when he checked, so Dan decided to quickly try to finish his breakfast before their long-awaited Skype call. When a pop-up suddenly appeared on the screen, telling him that “PhilHiDan” had come online, he shoved the bowl to the side, made sure it wasn’t visible on his webcam (having a bowl of cereal fully visible beside him somehow didn’t seem like something that would make a good impression on Phil) and fixed his hair. He wished he’d had the time to straighten it, but it was too late for that now. He silently thanked God or whoever for the fact that his hair had not gone Full Hobbit in his sleep and actually looked quite decent.

‘PhilHiDan is calling’  
Dan clicked on ‘video answer’ and it felt like the nervous butterflies in his stomach were doing somersaults. “Is it time?” He heard a voice behind him say. “Jesu-.” Dan managed to choke out before quickly pulling himself together. Phil had appeared on the screen.  
“Hi.”  
Dan couldn’t help but smile broadly, “Hi.” He replied. He could see Evzynn standing behind him in the view finder and was once again hit with the realisation that Phil couldn’t see him. Dan was the only one who could. To him it seemed so obvious that there was a tall guy behind him, leaning against the wall with a bored expression on his pale face, but everyone else just looked right through him.  
“Are you okay, Dan?”  
Dan squeezed his eyes shut for a second before forcing a smile and nodding, “I can’t believe I’m actually talking to you.”  
“Me neither. So.. Happy birthday again. You get anything outstanding?”  
Dan shook his head, “Not really, just some books and CDs that I asked for.”  
“You’re a Muse fan, right?”  
“Definitely.”  
“Have you ever seen them live?”  
Dan had to admit that it was a lot less scary then he’d expected it to be. Talking to Phil over Skype was almost as easy as talking to him over Twitter and their conversation easily flowed from one subject into another, and before they knew it the counter stated that they’d been talking non-stop for almost four hours.

Dan started counting the passing days in Skype calls that seemed to last forever and laughter that seemed to be worth more than a thousand tweets. He fell asleep at his desk at night and woke up to Phil’s sleeping face on the screen in front of him. It felt like one giant never-ending sleepover and Dan hardly ever left his room anymore. His mum brought him lunch and every day she told him that “tomorrow she wasn’t bringing him his lunch and he’d have to come downstairs to get it himself”, but every day she came upstairs to bring him food anyway after realising again that he wasn’t going to come downstairs. He skipped breakfasts and only left his room for toilet breaks, quick showers and dinner –his mum insisted that he’d come to have dinner with the rest of the family every day, or else she’d take his computer away-. Dan didn’t want to risk losing his computer, especially not now that him and Phil were just starting to become friends. They had a lot in common, Phil and him, favourite bands, TV shows and hobbies, they all matched. They had movie nights over Skype and Phil almost forgot to make YouTube videos.

On June 21st they didn’t Skype all day (which was a first), as Phil wanted to make a video. Dan had kind of forgotten how to spend a day not sitting at his computer for fourteen hours straight and eventually agreed to go into town with some friends, whom he’d accidentally neglected for ten days.  
They went shopping (more like window watching, as the only time they actually stood in queue was when one of his friends decided to impulsively buy a packet of bubblegum) and ate at a pizzeria afterwards. Just as Dan wanted to suggest going home, one of the others came with the idea to go to a carnival in Reading. Dan, still feeling bad about ignoring them during his days of non-stop Skype calls with Phil, went with them.

Spending multiple consecutive hours at a busy carnival full of drunk teens and smelly old people wasn’t Dan’s definition of a good time at all. He mostly stayed behind, stood beside the attractions and ate cotton candy until his friends got back and told him how much he’d missed by not going with them.  
They bought beer –one of them even offered to buy Dan one- and got pretty drunk. They were lucky that they were taking a train, as they certainly wouldn’t have been able to drive back in this state.  
Dan didn’t drink, knowing his mum would be pissed if he came home drunk, so he ended up having to guide everyone back to the train station at ten. They were all giggling and chatting like crazy and Dan felt a bit ashamed when he pulled them with him and noticed the elderly women behind one of the windows looking at them with annoyed expressions on their faces.  
At half ten he finally walked back into his safe bedroom, exhausted, sweaty and admittedly a bit dizzy from one of the attractions.  
He opened Skype –Phil wasn’t online- and logged into Facebook. A friend request from Phil.  
He got a friend request from Phil.

He didn’t know why this made him so happy, they’d been talking for months, surely they’d become friends a long time ago. But somehow making it ‘Facebook official’ confirmed to him that Phil saw him as a friend too. Even though if Phil didn’t see him as a friend he’d done a hell of a good job putting up with Dan for ten consecutive days.  
“Happy?”  
Dan had gotten over getting scared when Evzynn suddenly showed up, and without looking up from his computer he replied: “Very.” And clicked Accept.  
As soon as the little pop-up showed up, confirming to him that Phil and him were now Facebook friends Dan turned his chair around and got up. “Can I touch you?” He asked Evzynn, a bit reluctant. “I can only touch things I want to touch down here.”  
Dan stared at him, waiting for an answer. And for a second Evzynn’s face was as expressionless as before, but then he broke into a smile, “Hugs for Daniel!” He exclaimed. Dan stepped into Evzynn’s arms and pressed against him. Evzynn felt cold and stiff, but for some reason the embrace was comfortable nonetheless.


	4. Chapter 4

“Dan, can you come help me with the groceries for a second?”  
“Sure.” Dan called back, whilst quickly typing out a text to Phil. Two days after the Facebook Friends thing they’d exchanged phone numbers so that they could now talk everywhere they went without the public eye watching them on Twitter or having to be near a computer for Skype. They’d been texting non stop ever since and at the end of June, when the bills came in, his mum told him off for texting too much.  
When walking into the kitchen Dan immediately noticed the man in the corner beside the fridge. He opened his mouth to ask his mum about him, but realised just in time that the man was an Elik and his mum could not see him. Was that his mum’s Elik? He looked the man up and down. He seemed like a nice guy, but Dan wasn’t sure if he wanted his mum’s decisions to be in this guy’s hands. A sudden realisation hit him whilst looking from the Elik to his mum and back. Maybe his mum hadn’t wanted kids. Maybe the Elik just made her think that she wanted to.  
“Mum,” He started, “Have you always wanted children?”  
His mum gave him a surprised look, “Yes. Of course.” She nodded, “Why?”  
“No, nothing. I was just curious. So er- where should I put the lettuce?”  
“Fridge.” His mum replied, turning back to the box of groceries. Dan sighed in relief at his mother letting him change the subject so easily. 

“Evzynn?” Dan said softly whilst walking back into his room.  
“You called?” The Elik suddenly appeared in front of him, blocking his path.  
“Yeah, you see, I kind of, I mean er- I think I saw my mum’s Elik?” He tried.  
“Elti.” Evzynn said.  
“Gesundheit.” Dan replied.  
Evzynn laughed, “No. Elti. Your mum’s Elik’s name is Elti.”  
“Oh. Right. Yeah, okay. How come I can see him?”  
“My guess is as good as yours.”  
Dan’s phone started buzzing and making noises in his pocket and he quickly got it out. Upon seeing the screen he remembered that he’d set an alarm. One of his friends was having a party to celebrate the end of yet another year of school and he was invited. Though he didn’t really feel like going, he’d recently been taking every opportunity to spend time with his friends, the positive results of their exams harshly having reminded him that they only had till about June next year before they’d all go off to different universities and maybe not seeing each other again for years. Maybe never again. Of course they’d promise to text and call, but everyone knew that that contact would get less and less until it completely disappeared and a few years later you’d find yourself scrolling through the contact list on your phone and deleting their numbers, either not remembering who they were or assuming that the friendship was over.  
“I’m going to a mate’s party.” Dan announced.  
“Have fun.” Evzynn replied before disappearing into thin air.

After a quick shower and a comb through his dark hair he was off to the party. It wasn’t far; only a few blocks away from his own house. He could hear the faint sound of a Blink-182 song being played through speakers from a block away, indicating that he was almost at his destination. The music got louder and louder and on the corner of the street he already found the music too loud. He could see some girls with red cups in their hands standing underneath the tree in the front lawn. The stared at him when he walked past, giggling to themselves and nudging each other. He met Ben –the host- by the door. He seemed slightly tipsy, but nothing like the girls outside yet, who were definitely already full on drunk.

“Come in, come in. Were you planning on getting drunk tonight? More than enough alcohol! Planning on befriending some new people? More than enough potential victims! Planning on getting laid? More than enough willing girls!” Ben slurred whilst dragging Dan inside.  
“Yeah, great. Thanks.” Dan replied, trying to get Ben’s hands off his arms. His eyes scanned the room for any of his friends (preferably not drunk), but he didn’t see any.  
When he stepped into the living room, Ben’s hands still on his arms and his voice still rambling excitedly in his ear, he was quick to notice that about three quarters of the figures in the room were humans. The other 25% were Elikae, he was fairly certain of it. They stood together in group, chatting and laughing together. “As a sign of friendship and companionship Elikae have their humans become friends” Dan remembered Evzynn’s words. These people were all friends, so their Elikae had to be too. The fact that all these people had gathered here gave their Elikae the perfect opportunity to catch up with each other and hang out.  
“I think I’ll be okay now, thanks Ben.” He said, shaking Ben’s hands off him. Ben’s voice stopped rambling in his ear and he no longer felt him stand behind him. The music was too loud for him to hear Ben’s footsteps, but he assumed his friend had left.

Dan walked further into the busy room, walking up to a group of his friends standing together in a corner.  
“Hey Dan, glad you could make it!” One of them said upon spotting him. Dan smiled in reply as they made room for him in their circle.  
“How’ve you been, dude? I haven’t seen you in forever!” A slightly intoxicated Stan exclaimed.  
“I’ve been great, how’ve you been?”  
“Like, this great.” Stan held his hands a few feet apart and nodded enthusiastically.  
“You drunk already? It’s only like half nine.”  
Stan put a heavy hand on his shoulder and stood just a bit too close to him when he said: “Daniel, it’s never too early for a beer.”  
“Whatever you say, big guy.” Dan gently pushed Stan away from him and whilst doing that he caught another glimpse of the group of Elikae standing together on the other side of the food table. “Yeah, okay. I see someone I really need to speak right there. So, I’ll see you guys later.” Dan pointed in a random direction and left the group. He needed an empty room to summon Evzynn and decided that he had the best chance to find just that upstairs. He made his way up the stairs and landed in a small hallway. There were crumpled red cups scattered across the floor and unsavoury sounds came from some of the rooms. He put his ear to every door, knowing fully well that he would not want to enter one if there was noise coming from it. He decided upon the second to last door to the right which seemed empty going by the silence. He slowly pushed the door open, bracing himself for an unpleasant view anyway, but the room was indeed empty. It was a small bedroom, probably from a boy of about seven. He understood why none of the couples had chosen this room; even in a drunken state you’d feel wrong having sex in the bedroom of a little boy.  
Dan closed the door behind him, pushed the small bookcase that was standing beside the door in front of it. “Evzynn?” He said softly after making sure that no one would suddenly come into the room.

“That’s my name.” Evzynn appeared in front of him.  
“There’s more downstairs. More Elikae.”  
“I know. I checked. I’m guessing you saw the group beside the table?”  
“Yes.”  
“Those were your friends’ Elikae. Dan, I think I’ve figured it out.”  
“Figured out why I can see them?”  
“Yes. I think you can see the Elikae of people who love you.”  
“How do you know it’s not the Elikae of people whom I love?”  
“No, no. That’s not possible. It’s.. It’s difficult. But it’s not that. Trust me.”  
Dan nodded, “Okay. I believe you. But Evzynn, are my friends only my friends because our Elikae are friends?”  
Evzynn hesitated, “It’s not really like that. It can go both ways, you see. I’ll explain it to your some other time. Now go back downstairs, before people think you’re getting laid up here.”  
“Is that a bad thing?”  
“I got the impression that that’s not really a thing you’d do.”

Dan shrugged, turned around and started pushing the bookcase back to where it came from.  
But before he even got a chance to step out of the room, he got pushed back in by a small blonde woman. She closed the door behind them and looked up at him suspiciously.  
“Sorry, do I know you?” Dan asked, stepping back as she kept stepping closer to him.  
She opened her mouth and Dan expected to hear an explanation but got confusing panicked words instead. He didn’t understand a word she was saying, and she just kept getting more and more frantic in her hand movements and facial expressions. “I- I don’t understand you.” He tried. But she just kept on rambling. She was an Elik, he’d realised.  
“Evzynn?”  
“You can’t even go without me for fi-..” Evzynn’s voice came from behind him and he cut himself off midsentence, noticing the woman in the room.

He said something in the strange language the woman was speaking and she looked up in surprise, immediately picking up on it and aiming her nonsense words at Evzynn. They talked for a while and Dan felt like he was the awkward third friend going out for dinner with two of his friends who were in a relationship.  
“Daniel.” Evzynn suddenly spoke. Dan turned around. “This is Erza. Your friend Jack’s Elik. She wants to know what the freak is going on and why you seem to be able to see her.”  
“Did you tell her that we don’t really know either?”  
Evzynn grinned, “Yeah. She’s heard of you. There’s a rumour about you among the Elikae. You’re known as ‘That One Boy Who Can See Us’.”  
“Catchy name.” Dan replied sarcastically.  
“Well, if you’ve ever dreamt of becoming famous, you kind of are now.”  
“Okay, that’s great and all, but why can’t I understand her?”  
“She speaks the language of the Elikae.”  
“But you speak English.”  
“I am your Elik.”  
“So? I’m not supposed to be seeing you. Why would there be a special regulation that makes you able to talk to me in English?”  
“You are a bright kid.” Evzynn simply said. “And I don’t know. This has only happened before once. The big guys are kind of panicking at the moment.”  
“The big guys as in the politicians of the Elikae world?”  
“You could say that, yes.”  
“So who else could see Elikae?”  
“What do you mean?”  
“Well you just said that this had only happened once before.”  
“Oh yeah, right. Someone you may know as Jack The Ripper.”  
“Are you joking?”

“Nope. In Mr. The Ripper’s big year, 1888, he started being able to see us. You see, he had an illness which slowly broke down his cells. In other words, the cells that kept him from seeing things such as ghosts and Elikae and all that fun stuff slowly died out and he could first just see his Elik, but then he could suddenly see them all. Jack The Ripper was a psychopath, he killed his Elik and then started murdering people as there was no one to stop him. The big guys were in a complete state of panic. Code red, the entire population of the Elikae world was pulled back and the world fell into chaos. It lasted till a little after Mary Kelly’s murder in November 1888, when Jack The Ripper died of his illness. You can imagine why the big guys are panicking again now, I assume. They don’t want another Jack The Ripper.”  
“So ignoring the whole Jack The Ripper Killed His Elik part, you’re telling me that though you do not think I am someone who’s into one-night stands, you do think I’m capable of murdering five people?”  
“Well, I don’t. But the big guys don’t know anything about you. They haven’t been by your side for eighteen years. Me knowing that you won’t take advantage of your gift doesn’t mean that they will believe it too.”

“So, what will they do to me? Will they try to take my gift away from me? Kill me? Pull back all Elikae?”  
“I honestly don’t know. I don’t think they’ll try to kill you, most Elikae Erza has spoken to hope to someday meet you, as it would be interesting to speak to an actual human instead of to Elikae.”  
“Welcome to the petting zoo. If you look to your right you’ll see goats. If you look to your left you’ll see the only human currently alive who is able to see Elikae. Please don’t feed it.”  
Evzynn patted him on the back, “Go downstairs, Daniel. I’ll handle this.”  
Dan nodded and complied, and has he walked back downstairs he tried to mentally prepare himself to come across as normal towards his friends.


	5. Chapter 5

“You know what,” Phil spoke, “After all these months of being online friends, I feel we should take it into the real world.”  
“You mean you want to meet?”  
“If that’s okay with you, then yes.”  
“Of course it’s okay with me!” Dan had to keep himself from jumping up from his loyal office chair and start dancing around.  
“I’m going to set one condition here.” Phil continued. “You have to start making YouTube videos too. You told me yourself that after February you’d have ages to spend doing nothing whilst you wait till you can go to Uni. You might as well spend that time making YouTube videos, you know.”  
“A lawyer with a YouTube channel?”  
“I don’t think that if you’re a serial killer’s last hope they’re going to care whether you’ve got a YouTube channel or not.”  
As soon as the words “serial killer” had left Phil’s mouth, Dan’s mind flashed back to his conversation with Evzynn almost two months ago, about how the important Elikae were afraid that he was going to turn into a second Jack The Ripper.  
He nodded at Phil, “Maybe you’re right.”  
“I know I am. So, no meeting until you’ve uploaded at least one video.”  
“Now that’s just harsh.”  
“Welcome to the real world, Dan.”

With the camera up on eyelevel on the shelf in front of him and himself dressed in his fanciest shirt, he was technically ready to start filming his first video. He had his script all written out, all his props were laid out on the bed and the only thing keeping him from pushing the “record”-button were his nerves.  
This was going to be his first video. He was going to have to make an impression on the people watching. This could be the start of something big. He hoped it was.  
As soon as he felt even the slightest bit of courage start coursing through his veins he used it to press the button.

“Hi.”  
Move to the side.  
“So, my name is Dan.”  
Move to the side.  
“Nice to meet you.”  
After a few sentences he relaxed. Of course, it felt odd to be standing in his bedroom, talking to a camera, but realising that he could just do it over and over until he was satisfied with it gave him some much needed confidence. 

He quickly realised that the actual filming part was a lot less unpleasant than the editing part. He didn’t find editing to be particularly boring or dull, it was just that it took so outrageously long; even an easy video like this one took him a few hours to edit. He had to edit in texts, cut the jump cuts at exactly the right moment and pick out the right fragment every time, as he’d filmed some of the parts over ten times.

“I did it.” He announced later that night.  
“Very well. I can’t wait to see it. When will you upload it?”  
“Should I do it tonight?”  
“Yes please.” Phil replied eagerly.  
Dan opened YouTube and clicked the “upload video” option. The video uploaded slowly; Dan’s computer wasn’t the fastest or the newest anymore.  
“It’s uploading.”  
“Okay, don’t be nervous. I’m going to make sure I’m the first one to watch it, and after determining if it’s as fantastic as I’m expecting it to be I’m going to promote it on my Twitter.”  
“Only if it lives up to your expectations?”  
“Hey, promoting a bad video is bad for my reputation!” Phil joked.  
“Sure it is. It will be up in an hour.”  
“I’ll be here. Just… Waiting patiently.”  
“If I were with you right now I’d punch you in the arm.”  
“Treat your elders with respect, Daniel.”  
“I owe you a punch in the arm when I meet you.”  
“You got a date in mind?”  
“How does Monday sound?”  
“Next Monday?”  
“Yeah?”  
“That sound marvellous. Let’s do it. Are you coming to mine?”  
“Unless you want to be stuck with my family, I suggest I come to Manchester, yes.”  
“I bet your family is great.”  
“They are.” Dan admitted, “To be honest, I’d rather just spend the day with you alone instead of with you and my family. I am positive that my mum would embarrass me at least three times in front of you. Don’t want to take that risk.”  
“You have such trust in your mum, it’s almost unbelievable.” Phil laughed.

They waited for Dan’s video to go online together and then watched it together. Though “watching” was a big word for just having the tab open. Dan was actually staring at Phil’s face throughout the whole video, anxiously looking for signs of either approval or disapproval. At the end of the video, when Phil looked back into the cam, Dan carefully asked him, “So? What did you think?”  
The corners of Phil’s mouth curled up into a broad smile, “That was great. I’m real proud of you, mate.”  
“Thank you.” Dan beamed, “So the meeting is on?”  
“It definitely is.”

The day before their meet-up Dan felt like he was going crazy. He was going to meet his Former Idol Now Good Friend Phil Lester in real life for the first time, and he couldn’t remember a time where he’d been more excited than at that very moment. He walked around the house aimlessly until his mum told him off, saying his pacing was making her nervous, so he went back upstairs and decided to make another video.  
He knew his video about his made up illness “Butterfingers” was weird and maybe a bit scary, but he couldn’t care less; at least he had something keeping him busy so that he wouldn’t constantly think of meeting Phil.

Incoming message from: Phil Lester  
Saw ur new video. Nice one. Very original. Cant talk tonight. See u tomorrow :))

The four hours on the train were boring and way too long.  
Dan played endless games on his phone, refreshed his Twitter Timeline over and over and randomly got up to go sit somewhere else at any given moment. He ended up sending Phil about fifteen texts about how bored he was, and five minutes after the last one he finally got his reply.  
Incoming message from: Phil Lester  
How much longer till u get here? I hope not too long as I am already at the station ..

Composing message to: Phil Lester  
Like half an hour. Don’t u dare complain, ive been on this train for 3,5 hours and my bum hurts !!

Incoming message from: Phil Lester  
Poor u

Dan rolled his eyes and went back to playing some kind of stupid game which he didn’t really understand on his phone.

The train slowly rolled into the station. People around him were getting up. They all looked bored, of course they weren’t going to meet someone they’d been dying to meet for years for the first time. Dan roughly shoved his phone in his pocket whilst at the same time trying to get his backpack from under the chair. His nervous shaking hands made both of these actions a bit more difficult, but he managed to grab the bag just before the doors opened and the people started streaming onto the platform by dozens.  
He pushed his way through and breathed in the musty smell of too many people crammed into one room. Though he had a height advantage of a few centimetres over most of the people there, he still couldn’t see his friend. People were pushing him aside from all angles as he tried to make his way over to a calmer spot in the back of the site, hoping he’d be able to spot Phil from there.  
But before he got a chance to start walking, he got a particularly harsh push against his back and he stumbled through the wall of people in the direction of one of the small shops.

“Dan!”  
The loud noises surrounding him kept him from hearing what direction the voice had come from. He could hardly turn his head, as he had to keep looking in front of him to avoid tripping.  
“Dan!” His name was called again, and this time he saw the owner of the voice standing beside the shop he was walking towards. Phil Lester smiled brightly at him and waved. He decided to not attempt to wave back, knowing that that’d be a suicide attempt in the middle of this crowd. Phil had seen that Dan had noticed him and came walking towards them, but stopped at the Great Wall Of People.  
As soon as he’d made his way through the mass and stumbled into the open space before the store he stood close to Phil. About 30 centimetres between them meant that they weren’t touching.  
“Hi.”  
“Hi.”

And then Phil’s arms were around him and he was being pulled close to the older boy’s body before he even got a chance to raise his own arms. “Welcome to Manchester.” Phil said in his ear. And Dan knew that he was the only one who could hear his words over the noise and he somehow felt so special and important in that moment.  
“Let’s get out of the station and take a bus to my flat. Don’t worry, it’s only a ride of a few minutes.”  
“Good, because I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve just spent four hours sitting around on a train.”  
“At least the train has free wifi.”  
“Are you kidding me? It has free wifi? So I wasted my entire internet supply from this month on this train ride and there’s free fucking wifi?”  
“You have such a horrible life.” Phil agreed as the two of them started walking out the station.

British as they were, they didn’t complain when they got stuck in the queue by the door and just chatted about what they were going to spend the next three days doing.  
Dan would’ve loved to stay the entire week, –he had the week off from school anyway- but his parents had insisted that he’d be home for at least half of the week. Phil had jokingly offered to let him hide from his parents in his flat and Dan had replied that that would be a great idea and that his parents would definitely not break his face if he were to try that.  
So they’d eventually agreed on three days. Three days to spend with Phil, when he was sure they could spend years together without getting bored of each other.  
It was quite cold given that it was only half October. The ground surrounding every tree was full of leaves and whenever the wind blew an entire pile of leaves got lifted off the ground and thrust into a random passer-by’s face. The bus stop was packed with annoyed looking businessmen and excited bouncy children who were only staying by their mothers’ sides because they were being forcefully held by their hands. It started to softly rain and Dan and Phil squeezed themselves in between a businessman and a woman who looked like she’d rather be dead than stand right there at the bus stop.

“Seems like the rain is coming to rain on our parade.” Phil looked down at Dan triumphantly.  
Dan shook his head, “It’s a no from me.”  
“Don’t go quoting Simon Cowell on my amazing jokes!” Phil exclaimed, pretending to be offended.  
When the bus finally turned the corner and people starting stepping away from the cover of the bus shelter, eager to get the best seats available, the two boys stayed were they were. Without communicating they agreed to wait for the rest of the people to get into the bus so that they wouldn’t get stuck in a huge crowd again.  
They followed after a group of college kids and got onto the bus. Phil had paid for them both before Dan even got a chance to hand the driver his own money and the elder didn’t give him a chance to protest but pulled him towards some seats by his arm.  
“I was thinking we go to my flat, order some pizza and play some videogames. What do you think?” Phil proposed.  
“Sounds great. Let’s do it.”

The lift was broken.  
Dan was not a sporty type; after the first set of stairs he already felt like lying down and never getting up. By the time they arrived on Phil’s floor Dan had to hold still for a minute to catch his breath and Phil just laughed at him. “Can I go open the door or do you need my moral support?”  
“No, you can.. go open the.. phew… the door.”  
“Don’t suffocate.” Phil warned as he turned towards the door of his flat and got out his keys.  
As soon as Phil opened the door, Dan dragged himself into Phil’s flat, “It’s nice.” He breathed.  
“D’you think?”  
“Yeah. I’ve never seen your hallway before.” He only realised how weird that sounded when he’d already said it.  
“I hope you mean because I haven’t showed it in my videos before.”  
“Yeah, yes. That’s what I mean. I don’t stalk you or anything.”  
“You’re a fan of mine though.”  
“I am.” Dan admitted.

“So, shall I go order that pizza? You make yourself at home, by the way. I don’t think you could possibly be messier than me, so we’ll be okay.”  
Dan kicked off his shoes and put his coat on the pile by the door. I’ll pay for the pizza’s.” He offered.  
“Shut up, Dan.” Phil grabbed the home phone from a cabinet in the living room and dialled a number which he apparently knew by heart. Though Dan couldn’t say he was surprised by a 22-yearold ordering pizza so much that he knew the phone number by heart. Especially not because it was Phil.

With the sound of Phil ordering pizza in the background Dan started exploring the living room, picking accessories up and wiping some dust off the TV by letting his fingers slide over the top. Either Phil was so busy being a Youtuber (which Dan deemed highly unlikely) or he just never felt like dusting (which sounded far more likely). He stopped when he reached the container filled with DVD’s and videogames and took a moment to read some of the titles. He owned some of these videogames too, he realised. But most of the movies were new to him. Maybe they could watch them together some time. He pulled one of the DVD’s out of the container and started reading the summary on the back. “You enjoying yourself?” Dan nearly jumped a meter in the air by the sudden voice in his ear. He hadn’t even noticed that Phil had finished his phone call and crept up on him. “Jesus Christ, Phil. You gave me a heart attack.”  
“That was the idea. Pizza will be here within an hour. ‘If it’s late, it’s free.’” He mocked the voice of lady whom Dan assumed had taken his order.  
“See any game you would like to play?” Phil asked whilst stepping back.  
“Super Smash Bros.” Dan grinned and held up the box for Phil to see, “One of my mates back in Wokingham owns it too, it’s absolutely fantastic.”

The pizza arrived 27 minutes after ordering. Dan and Phil had kept track of the time closely, hoping it’d be just a tiny bit too late so that it’d be free but still warm.  
Instead Phil ended up having to pay and the pizza’s were still nice and hot. Dan set the table as well as he could without knowing were the cutlery was.  
They sat at the table and ate their pizza in silence before Phil spoke up: “This whole first meeting thing is going better than I expected it to.”  
Dan nodded in agreement, not able to say anything in reply as he had just stuffed half a slice into his mouth.

“So, I was thinking.. We’re going to spend the rest of the night playing videogames and tomorrow we’ll film videos for both of our channels.” Phil still hadn’t touched his pizza.  
“Sure.” Dan replied, “What did you have in mind?”  
Phil shrugged and took a bite of his first slice, “Don’t know, I wanted to do some kind of Q&A. We could call it like Amazing Dan or Phil Is Not On Fire.”  
Dan laughed.  
“I’m serious. What did you want to do?”  
“Well I’ve been thinking of doing like a How To on how to befriend Youtubers. And just slightly over exaggerate our own story.”  
“You don’t need to overdo it that much, you were basically my obsessed fan.”  
Dan nearly chocked on his pizza, falling into a coughing fit.  
“I know. I know. I’m hilarious.”

The next time Dan looked up from his pizza, Evzynn was standing behind Phil. For once he wasn’t leaning against the wall and instead of his usual cheerful and slightly sassy expression he looked stressed and concerned. “Please either start stuffing your face right now or excuse yourself.”  
“Er.. Can I use your bathroom?”  
“You’re staying for three days. Did you really think I was going to deprive you of using the bathroom for three days?”  
“No, but I mean, we’re eating and all. I’m being rude.”  
Phil laughed, “Go ahead. Bathroom’s over there.” He pointed at a door with a greasy finger.  
“Thanks.” Dan got up and walked to the bathroom Phil had just pointed out to him, Evzynn following closely.  
As soon as Dan locked the door, Evzynn burst out: “Panic. Complete chaos up there.”  
“Why? What’s going on? Did I accidentally murder a prostitute?” Dan whispered back.  
“This is no time to try and be funny, Daniel. I just came from upstairs, I got orders to not let you out of my sight. We’re going to have to lay low for a while.”  
“I am laying low! What the hell did I do to call attention to myself?!”

He had spoken too loudly, Phil’s concerned voice echoed through the small bathroom, “Are you okay in there, Dan? Who are you talking to?”  
“I er- No one. I er- have like, greasy fingers, so I can’t get my jeans off.”  
“You’re cussing your jeans out?”  
“Yep.” Dan replied, relieved that Phil believed him.  
“Whatever you say, mate.”

Dan turned back to Evzynn, “What’d I do?” He whispered.  
“You left your house and you went somewhere they didn’t expect you to go. They’ve called Phil’s Elik to them as well, asked him what was going on between you two.”  
“What’d he say?”  
“He told them you were internet friends and you were just going to meet for the first time. No secret plots.”  
“Did they believe him?”  
“Kind of. We’ve both been ordered to be with you at all times.”  
“Is Erazniel in the living room too?”  
Evzynn avoided his gaze and scratched at his nose, “Yeah.” He replied, “He was next to me.”  
Dan nodded slowly. His heart ached a bit but he tried to ignore it.  
“I’ll go back to Phil now before he thinks I’m planning on staying here.” He quickly flushed the toilet, let the tap run for a few seconds and left the bathroom.  
“I’m back.” He announced as he stepped back into the small hallway and walked back to the table. His eyes scanned the room, but the only visible Elik was Evzynn, who went back to his place by the wall, again not leaning against it.

Of course Phil noticed there was something a bit off about Dan that night whilst they played Super Smash Bros. Dan’s mind wasn’t with it and he kept losing and only noticing the game had stopped a few seconds after the Highscore screen showed up. But he didn’t say anything, dismissed it and just let Dan make them lose all the games.  
At two am they decided to go to bed, (actually, Phil decided it, Dan just nodded absentmindedly and took the blanket and cushion Phil handed him) as they had to film two videos tomorrow. Dan positioned himself on the couch, blanket draped lightly over his body. “Goodnight.”  
“Goodnight.”  
Neither of them slept very well that night, both having the same thoughts coursing through their minds the entire time.


	6. Chapter 6

As Dan had fallen asleep when morning was already nearing, he slept until eleven. He would’ve slept for way longer, if it hadn’t been for Phil almost tripping over the power cable of the MacBook that was stood on the dinner table. Dan groaned and pulled the blanket over his eyes, “What time is it?” He murmured from underneath the cosy duvet.  
“Eleven.” Phil replied, “Want some cereal?”  
“No thanks, I’m good. How long have you been up?”  
“About two hours. Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up.”  
“It’s okay. Did you want to start filming in a bit?”  
“We could do that, or we could watch some TV first.” 

He motioned for Dan to move his legs a bit so that he could sit beside him. Dan pulled up his legs and turned his body to face the TV. “Anything good on?”  
“Most definitely not.” Phil replied, grabbing the remote from the coffee table. Dan could see Evzynn sit on the floor beside the TV. He looked bored; he fiddled with his nails and occasionally he would let his head rest against the wall and close his eyes. Still no Erazniel. Dan sighed and pulled the covers up a bit further. “Want to share the blanket?” He offered. Phil nodded and they positioned themselves to sit under the blanket together, staring at a mindless reality show which involved a man yelling at everyone and a woman throwing a hissy fit over how annoying he was.  
“Hot chocolate.” Phil announced out of the blue. He got up and walked over to the kitchen. He didn’t even ask if Dan wanted anything, he just came back with two damping mugs and placed them on the coffee table in front of the couch.

“Hold still.” He suddenly said. Dan could see the black marker in his hand and quickly shook his head, a smile appearing on his face, “Don’t get that near me!” He warned. He held up his hands, trying to push Phil away, but the older boy just grabbed his wrist and pulled it to the side. Dan tried an other approach, reaching for the marker with his free hand. Phil replied by placing his knee in-between Dan’s spread legs and grabbing both of his wrists with one hand and holding them down. “Now, if you cooperate your face won’t even look that stupid when I’m done.”  
“Help! Security!” Dan shouted. But his giant smile and the crows feet by his eyes gave away that he actually didn’t mind. He tried to duck away from Phil’s hand but stopped when Phil threatened to just colour his entire face black. “What are you going to draw on me?” Dan asked when he felt the point of the marker press against his cheek. “You’ll see.” He got in response.

Cat whiskers.  
He quickly realised.  
Phil was drawing cat whiskers on him.  
It was some kind of inside joke and neither of them really knew where it had come from; it had kind of just always been there.  
It tickled his nose, but he didn’t dare to move. Cat whiskers were okay; a huge black line from his nose to his jaw was not. Phil nodded contently and moved the marker away from Dan’s face. “You look great.”  
“I look like a cat.”  
“That was the idea.” Phil said. He released Dan’s wrists and got up. “Don’t worry, it’s not permanent. But you are keeping them on for the video for my channel!”  
Dan was quiet for a second before replying, “Okay. But only if I get to draw them on you too.”  
Phil looked down at him and broke into a smile, “Alright.”

Dan could suddenly see the form of another man sitting next to Evzynn appear.  
He could see Erazniel now.  
Phil loved him.  
Dan’s newly found cheerful mood was contagious; they happily made jokes about everything the people on TV did and laughed joyfully at everything. They finished a bag of crisps before it was even twelve and skipped lunch to start filming the video which they’d agreed on naming Phil Is Not On Fire.  
This time it was Dan holding the marker and Phil scrunching up his face, afraid of Dan messing up. But they looked great, the cat whiskers. They took a selfie in the mirror together and both put it as their screensavers.  
By that time a smile had appeared on Evzynn’s tired face. Him and Erazniel were softly whispering and they both seemed more relaxed than that morning.  
“Where shall we film?” Dan asked, putting his phone back in his pocket.  
“My bedroom?”  
“Kinky.”  
Phil laughed and Dan laughed along.

As Phil set up the camera Dan walked around, exploring the new area. He’d seen the room in videos, seen it from different angles even, but he’d never walked around in it and he had never been able to touch the objects he’d seen laying around. He picked up some stuff lying around on Phil’s messy desk and put them back down after fiddling with them. He stopped walking when he reached Phil’s wardrobe, which was covered in pictures. He recognised some of the people; during their long-time internet friendship Phil had sent him pictures from his holidays with his family multiple times and Dan had started recognising Phil’s parents and brother. When he continued his exploration he had to watch where he put his feet carefully as random stuff was spread all over the floor between the bed and the desk and chair. “Should I clean this stuff up?” Dan asked, pointing at the mess on the floor.  
Phil looked up from the tripod he was trying to set up and shook his head, “No, we’ll just sit in front of it. I don’t think people expect me to be very neat and clean anyway.”  
“True.” Dan agreed.

Filming the video went great. Dan did a great job ignoring the constant talking of the two Elikae in the corner and after a while they even stopped talking and listened to the two boys filming. Dan and Phil ended up wrestling and their cat whiskers got smudged by brushing against the floor and the random objects lying around on it. They washed the remaining smudged lines off their face and continues to film a few more questions. But by that time they’d already finished the ending –still with the cat whiskers- so the footage with and without cat whiskers would later get mixed together into one big pile of cat whisker-y confusion. 

When they finished filming at 14:40 they were both too hyper to sit down and do the video for Dan’s channel and decided to go out. And as Dan watched Phil close the door of the flat behind them he realised that this was what he’d been dreaming about for years. He’d been wanting to just casually hang out with Phil ever since he’d started watching his YouTube videos and here it was. In this moment. His dreams had come true, he was actually ‘casually hanging out’ with Phil. Behind that door was the flat he’d been dreaming about seeing in real life all those years and he’d been there now, he’d slept on the couch of that very same couch. He’d filmed a video with his idol in the bedroom of the flat he’d been wanting to visit for years for the channel he’d been watching for years. In that moment he realised that all his dreams had actually come true and he couldn’t believe his luck. Not only had he met his idol, but he’d actually befriended his idol. His idol loved him back. Not because he was a fan, but because they were friends.  
For some reason he didn’t really care where they were going, as long as he was with Phil. His new friend. Who loved him (which he was reminded of every time he looked at Erazniel who never left Evzynn’s side). Who voluntarily took him into Manchester to hang out with him.

“How about we go onto the Manchester Eye?” Phil proposed as they took the stairs downstairs.  
“Fine by me.” Dan replied. Getting down the stairs took a lot less effort than getting up them, he thought to himself. He got downstairs still pumped and ready to go do something active. He’d say he was ready to run a mile, but that would be an unrealistic thought as he’d probably break down after a few hundred feet.  
They took a bus downtown and as soon as Dan got out he could see the Manchester Eye catch everyone’s attention as it stood proudly in the middle of the city.

“That’s high.” He stated.  
Phil laughed and patted him on the back, “Yup! Now let’s get in the queue! It’s probably busy so the faster we get there the faster we can get on!”  
The one hour queue was worth it, Dan decided as the employee closed the door of their capsule. The other three passengers were a woman and her twins who looked about 7 and were obviously very excited about going on the wheel. They spoke a language Dan thought sounded like German but just a bit different.  
As their cubicle went higher and higher the kids got more and more excited. One of the kids nudged Phil and asked him something in his German-like language and Phil gave the mother a puzzled look. “He asks if you’ve been on the wheel before.” The woman explained in a thick accent. Dutch, Dan guessed.  
“Yeah, a few times.”

The woman translated it to the boy and the kid nodded thoughtfully at them before squinting his eyes and pointing at himself, “Luuk.” He said. His brother immediately caught on and added, “Stef.”  
Their names sounded like a very posh person trying to pronounce ‘look’ and ‘stiff’ and Dan had to try his hardest not to laugh. Phil kept his posture very well and replied, “Phil.” Before pointing at Dan and saying, “Dan.”

Luuk turned to his mother and said something in Dutch. She nodded and replied something, but Dan had decided to revert his attention to the great view he had from the great height.  
Dan very much wished he didn’t speak English but some obscure language the woman wouldn’t understand, but when was luck ever on his side?  
Evzynn and Erazniel didn’t seem to like the Ferris wheel, they were whispering intensely and kept glancing at their humans.  
Evzynn disappeared into thin air out of nowhere and without attracting the attention of the other people in the cubicle Dan managed to shoot Erazniel a questioning look. Erazniel and him couldn’t communicate by speech; there was some kind of bond between an Elik and its human that made them able to communicate (but only in special situations like Dan’s), but he was still unable to understand other Elikae and he was pretty sure they couldn’t understand him either.

But sign language still worked, and Dan understood when Erazniel pointed to the air. Evzynn had gone to wherever Elikae went when they weren’t on earth. Dan quickly made a mental note to ask Evzynn where he went and if it had a name as soon as he got a chance.  
The stopped when they were almost at the top to give people a chance to get out and new people to get onto the cubicles that were down and gave the people up an opportunity to take in the stunning view of the city.  
As they stared outside Dan felt Phil put a hand on his shoulder and whispered: “Welcome to Manchester.”

The three days passed way too fast.  
Dan didn’t think he could go three days without having his smile drop, but it had just happened. He’d smiled for three days and he was absolutely bummed out about the fact that he had to leave.  
In attempt to preserve most of their last day, Dan took the last possible train back.  
A long hug ended their first real meeting and Dan felt as if he was a soldier being deployed and Phil was his wife who was going to wait for him to come back and think of him daily and write him letters and then cry when he’d see him in a year when he’d get off the train in Manchester and they’d dramatically run into each others arms. Dan smiled at the thought. But before he could even say anything Phil spoke up and said, “You better come back here real soon.” And Dan nodded into his shoulder.

The sound of the whistle took them out of their comfortable little bubble and they let go of each other, “Don’t forget about me!” Dan joked as he walked towards the train.  
“I would never.” Phil smiled and they kept eye contact until Dan disappeared behind the train doors and as soon as he’d lost sight of Phil he got a horrible empty feeling in his stomach.  
He knew he was going to see the Manchester boy again, he just didn’t know when. In that moment he hated his parents for making him be home for at least half of the holiday, though he knew he would hate their goodbye just as much if he’d stayed longer, but he’d have blamed school instead of his parents.  
Incoming message from: Phil Lester  
If you don’t come back within a month I will end you

Composing message to: Phil Lester  
Clingy

Incoming message from: Phil Lester  
You bet I am. And I am very much true to my words as well so watch urself

The train started moving and as Dan hadn’t sat down yet he nearly fell over and only stayed on his feet because a guy grabbed his shoulder and gave him an annoyed look, “Watch out, kid.”  
“Sorry.” Dan quickly murmured before making his way into the nearest coupe and sat down in the first seat he laid eyes on.  
Composing message to: Phil Lester  
Are u threatening me? I could call the cops on u, u know. But if my parents let me ill be back in Manchester in no time. Watch me

Incoming message from: Phil Lester  
My couch is gonna be lonely tonight

At half past midnight Dan got off the train and stepped onto the platform in Wokingham. His eyes scanned the small crowd for either one of his parents but with less excitement than with which they’d scanned the Manchester platform for Phil.  
He spotted his dad standing beside the great entrance and walked over to him. His father smiled at him when he noticed him, “How was Manchester?” He asked as soon as his son was within hearing range.  
Despite being exhausted Dan immediately got a giant smile on his face upon thinking of his three days with Phil, “Fantastic.” He replied. His dad smiled and as they walked back to the parking lot he patiently listened to Dan’s exciting chatter about Phil and the Manchester Eye and filming and playing videogames and watching Buffy and loudly singing along to Muse late at night.  
Nothing could bring Dan’s mood down and when he got home he effortlessly recited the entire story he’d just told his dad to his mum. His mum smiled at him fondly and told him she was glad that he’d had a good time.  
Dan couldn’t get to sleep when he finally put his head down to the pillow at two am and resorted to having a text conversation with Phil until he finally dozed off when it was nearly four.

Filming Phil Is Not On Fire had given him inspiration to do a new video for his own channel and the only positive thing about being back home was finally being able to film it. Even though he kept getting distracted by texts from Phil, he finished filming just before dinner and started editing after finishing his taco’s.  
He sent Phil a message on Skype as soon as he’d clicked ‘upload to YouTube’,  
DAN  
New video up in like an hour

PHIL  
Uve only just left Manchester yesterday and ur already filming again. I like ur style 

DAN  
I learnt from the best


	7. Chapter 7

“Mum, can I go over to Phil’s on Friday?” Dan asked. He was helping his mum cook –which he never did, so his mum probably suspected that he wanted something from her as soon as he’d offered to help- and he was currently standing with his back toward her.  
He heard her turn around, “So that’s what this is about?”  
“Maybe…?” Dan said softly. His hands stopped chopping the paprika as he anxiously waited for her reply.  
“I’m assuming you want to stay there over the weekend?”  
“Yes.” The tone of her voice gave him the confidence to turn around; she hadn’t rejected his question right away.  
She sighed, “You have to have done all your homework for Monday when you leave.”  
Dan nodded happily, “Yeah, sure. I’ll do the homework. Yes. I can do that.”

His mum smiled and said: “Well, you’re an adult. As long as you’re being responsible I can’t really keep you from doing things you want to do.”  
“Exactly.” Dan was eager to agree.  
“That is, if you at least help me to finish cooking and don’t just leave because you got what you wanted.”  
“No. Of course not. Here, I’ll help.” He quickly turned back around and went back to chopping up the paprika. He knew his mum was chuckling to herself behind him, amused at his enthusiasm about being allowed to go back to Manchester, to Phil.  
“So did he invite you?” She asked as she turned back to the pan.  
“Yeah.” Dan replied, “He said: ‘Remember what I said about you coming back within a month? I meant it.’”  
“He told you to come back within a month?”  
“When I left, yes.”  
“That’s sweet.”  
Such a mum-thing to say, he thought. ‘That’s sweet’, like he was a toddler who just shared his favourite candy with another kid. In your mother’s eyes you never really grow up. You’ll always stay her little boy.

He’d prepared himself for the four hour trip this time. He’d taken his laptop. With a fancy pair of earphones on and his eyes fixed on the screen he looked like a college student trying to meet a deadline; as long as you didn’t look at his screen on which an endless amount of people got Rickrolled. Dan tried his hardest to not look as if he was watching pointless YouTube videos so he kept a straight face and looked very concerned and stressed.

By the time the train came to a stop at the Manchester train station Dan had watched 23 videos of people getting Rickrolled, caught up on Community Channel videos and watched an episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. As he stepped out onto the platform he suddenly noticed Evzynn walking next to him; he hadn’t seen him on the train. “Where have you been?” Dan asked quickly. No one was paying attention to the kid who was seemingly talking to himself. “Upstairs.” Evzynn replied, “They’re currently working on a plan to get your mind to stop seeing Elikae.” Dan had lived without knowing about their existence for 18 years, but for some reason giving his knowledge and the power over his own life that the knowledge had given him up was not an option for him. “I don’t want to stop seeing you.” He said.

“I assume that that is not because of my great personality but because you are now in control of your life yourself.”  
Dan blushed, “No offense, you’re great and all, it’s just that after learning that nothing I did was really my choice I don’t want to give that back up and go back to being controlled.”  
“Yeah, I understand that. But I hope that you understand that you’re causing a crisis upstairs.”  
Dan nodded and remembered his mental note, “What is this ‘upstairs’ you keep going on about?”  
Evzynn shook his head, “Later,” He said, “Phil is over there, do you see him?”  
Dan sighed and nodded, “Yeah okay, I get the hint.”

Phil had seen him too; he was frantically waving and Dan waved back. His friend was standing beside a very annoyed looking woman who was eyeing Phil out of the corner of her eyes. Erazniel was stood behind Phil and his eyes lit up upon noticing Evzynn. Evzynn shouted something at him in their strange language and Erazniel replied something but Dan had taught himself to not get annoyed at their special Elikae language or whatever it was.

“Hey, Dan! How was the train ride this time?”  
Dan held up his laptop which he was still holding in his hand as the train had stopped without him noticing and he had speed-grabbed all of his stuff and sprinted out of the carriage. “Great.”  
“I have plans for us. Let’s go home.”  
“You’ve got plans?”  
“Yes. We start out today by filming your video, then we go out for dinner, watch a film at the theatre and spend the rest of the night playing videogames and watching TV.”  
“I think I can work with those plans.”  
“I thought so as well. Wine gum?” he held out a family packet of wine gums for Dan to take. Dan tilted his head confusedly, he hadn’t seen Phil holding it before. But he reached out and grabbed a handful. “Yep, okay. I should have expected something like this from you.”  
“You should.” Phil agreed as he put some in his mouth as well. “You got a script for your video yet?”  
“Er-..”  
“Something we can work with, at least?”  
“Yeah, I’ve got the steps ready. I just don’t have the exact script yet. I wanted to write it on the train but then I was too lazy and didn’t do it.”  
“Understandable. We’ll just improvise something. We’ll make it work.”

The bus stop was less crowded than the last time they’d stood there. Just some high school students from out of town going back home and an old woman with a small poodle which growled at everyone who had the guts to come near it. So naturally Phil tried to stand as close to it as possible without getting bit. The woman didn’t seem the notice; she stared into the distance intensely and didn’t seem to have any intentions to start calling them names or anything like that.  
The poodle, however, was not as amused by the game as Phil was. Dan just rolled his eyes at him every time the dog lashed out at him and made a witty remark, “If I were to write a song about dumbness your name would be every line”, “If I got 10p for every time you almost got killed by that dog I’d put the change in a sock and hit you with it” “You need Jesus”. But Phil didn’t listen and just continued to play until the bus came around the corner and Dan dragged him towards it to avoid letting him risk getting bit any longer.  
Evzynn and Erazniel followed behind him and stood in the small corridor as the bus started driving. Neither of them even flinched when they bus took a particularly sharp turn and they kept squinting their eyes and nodding thoughtfully during their whispered conversation.  
The entire way home the two boys made up a plan as to how they were going to make this work; Dan was going to film most scenes himself, except for the last scene in which Phil would make an appearance.

The flat was the same as when Dan last closed the door behind him; messy but inviting. He dumped his bag by the door and walked into the kitchen, “I’m taking some cereal and there’s nothing you can do to stop me!” He shouted at Phil, who was still standing by the door and taking off his coat. “Go for it.” He replied without looking up from undoing his buttons.  
Filming went quicker than expected, they were done by eight.  
That meant that Phil’s favourite local restaurant was still open and he insisted on going there. Dan decided to just give it a shot, so he agreed. He zipped up his coat and fixed his pockets, when he felt something in his right pocket. He never really put anything in his right pocket, it was always his left. It was a small piece of scrunched up paper and when he opened it up he quickly realised that the words written on it in neat handwriting were not English. “Bathroom break. Be right back.” He gave Phil a smile and dashed into the bathroom, knowing Phil was looking at him weird.

“Evzynn?” He whispered.  
“That would be me.” Evzynn effortlessly stepped right through the door and held his hand out, “Give me the note.”  
As his eyes scanned over the words his face got more concerned by the second.  
“Is it bad?” Dan carefully asked.  
“Go to the restaurant, Daniel.”  
“But-..”  
“Restaurant! Am I not making myself clear enough?” Evzynn was shouting at this point and Dan took a step back, this reminded him of when Evzynn was trying to figure out how to control Dan again and tried to make him close his eyes.  
“Sorry, yes. I’ll go.” Without making eye contact he walked straight past the Elik and didn’t look back when he left the bathroom.  
Phil gave him a look that told Dan that he knew he was lying. “You didn’t flush the toilet.” He said, “Why are you lying to me? I heard you talking in there. Just like last time. Don’t try telling me you couldn’t get your jeans off again because we both know that’s bullshit.”  
Dan ran a hand through his hair nervously, “I’ll explain it to you sometime. Just know that I’m not schizophrenic or anything. I promise.”  
“Of course you do.” Phil turned around. Dan knew he was mad at him for lying, but he also knew that telling him the truth would make him even angrier because he’d think Dan was lying and just telling him rubbish to have him stop talking.  
“Sorry.” He murmured. But Phil didn’t reply.

Dinner was tense. They were sat at some obscure local place and it smelt strange and was just a little too dark. Dan was glad it was dark, that way Phil couldn’t see the guilt on his face. He wanted to tell Phil. Of course he did. But he just couldn’t. Phil would never believe a story about invisible creatures controlling everyone. He could suddenly imagine why Jack The Ripper had lashed out and he was concerned for his own mental health for being able to relate with Jack The Ripper the actual serial killer from the nineteenth century.  
He’d probably resort to lashing out at people as well if he couldn’t talk to someone about it. Except he wouldn’t torture and murder prostitutes; or so he hoped. He knew a little about the guy, not much, but he knew that he only had five confirmed victims, but there were dozens of other deaths which he was possibly responsible for. The five confirmed victims were all killed in 1888, the unconfirmed ones were mostly after that year. There were a few before, but most of them were in the years following 1888 but no one had ever proven that the felonies were actually committed by that same guy. Who was still unidentified.  
Was that going to be him? In a hundred years would they be looking for the Joe Bloggs or John Doe who killed a bunch of people in the beginning of the 21st century? He didn’t think he’d actually be capable of murdering people though, maybe he’d start shouting at people he loved, maybe he’d get violent, but he wouldn’t kill them.  
He didn’t fancy watching his loved ones die by his hand, even if they’d laughed in his face when he tried telling them about Elikae. He looked over at Phil, who was halfway through his plate and hadn’t said anything about the fact that Dan hadn’t even touched his food yet.

He knew the best way to fix this was by telling the truth. So naturally, he lied.  
“I was building up courage. In the bathroom. I was talking to myself. I was nervous about going out for dinner with you. I’m sorry for lying.”  
Phil finally looked up at him, “You were nervous about going out for dinner with me?”  
“Yeah, well, I have this thing where I always think people hate me and are silently judging me even though I know they aren’t. I was afraid I’d somehow make a fool of myself.”  
Phil smiled comfortingly, “It’s okay. Thanks for being honest with me.”  
“Yeah…” Dan nodded. He felt horrible about lying, but he didn’t see a second option here. “Forgiven and forgotten?”  
Phil kicked him under the table and laughed, “Just this time. Next time I’m not letting you off the hook this easy.”  
“I can work with that.” Dan replied, laughing too.  
Maybe he lied, but at least him and Phil were on good terms again.

Over the next few months Dan obtained an Season Ticket so that he didn’t have to spend all the money on his bank on a train ticket every time he wanted to go visit Phil in Manchester. And he wanted to go visit Phil in Manchester pretty often.  
His own house was starting to feel like a home away from home. ‘Home is where the heart is’, as Gaius Plinius Secundas once said. Dan had the feeling that his heart had recently moved from his house with his family in Wokingham to Phil’s messy and small flat in Manchester and he couldn’t say he regretted it.  
He didn’t bother taking much stuff anymore;. He had bought a toothbrush to just keep at Phil’s so that he didn’t have to take his own with him every time and half of his wardrobe was lying on the floor in Phil’s bathroom or somewhere else in his flat.

He didn’t even ask his parents anymore, they’d just gotten used to him leaving for Manchester every Friday after school and not coming back until it was nearly one am on Monday morning.  
His grades weren’t suffering and that was really all his parents wanted, so they had no reason at all to not let their son spend as much time with his best friend as he possibly could.  
Phil didn’t really come to Dan’s. Partially because he didn’t have a Season Ticket and he’d have to pay the full sum and partially because when they were at Phil’s they could just do whatever they wanted without anyone keeping an eye on them.  
Dan was sure his parents wouldn’t let them play videogames until three in the morning and they would definitely not agree on letting them order pizza every night just because they were having a videogame marathon weekend.

Evzynn and Erazniel didn’t seem to mind spending so much time together either. Dan hadn’t asked, but he was pretty sure that the two of them had become best friends as well. They recently had been spending a lot of time playing games on some kind of Elikae device that looked like an iPad but wasn’t as it was all in 3D and the 3D objects jumping out of the screen where touchable and where at the same time the controls. Dan was interested in the device, but he was also content with just holding a controller in his hands and press the buttons instead of actually physically moving the characters through their 3D environment.

Over the months they filmed a Christmas series together, a Phil Is Not On Fire 2, an Amazing Dan and they also shot a lot of footage which they couldn’t use in any of their videos but were going to become great memories.  
Dan couldn’t wait to become an old man showing his grandkids the videos of him and his best friend, who would hopefully be sitting next to him, finishing his sentences and bringing up their best memories.


	8. Chapter 8

“How about you move to Manchester? You know, you’d be closer to both Phil and University.” His mum suggested during dinner.

It was 12 July, 2010. So far the year had been good alright on Dan. His YouTube channel was gaining popularity, him and Phil were closer than ever, and in September he’d be attending Manchester University.

Dan gave her a weird look, “I thought we’d agreed that I’d stay here for as long as I could.”

Behind his mum stood Elti and upon seeing her he quickly realised why his mum had suddenly changed her mind. He didn’t understand why she would want him to go to Manchester though; did she not like him? Did she not like Evzynn? Did she just want them out of the house and out of her way?

“I think you should do it, Daniel.” Evzynn agreed. He was stood next to the other Elik and as usual he was leaning against the nearest vertical surface which happened to be the fridge.

His mum was just looking at him and Dan shook his head, “I don’t want to move to Manchester.”

“But you’d be so much closer to Phil. Isn’t that what you want?”

“Yeah, of course, but I don’t want to move out yet. I’m only eighteen.”

“It’s your life.” His mum sighed and Dan knew she didn’t agree with him.

“Why do you want me to move to Manchester?” Dan asked as soon as he walked into his room.

“You mean you don’t think it’s a good thing to be close to Phil and your university?”

“Listen, you’re the one who made me go to ManchesterUniversity in the first place. I didn’t want to go. Phil offered to let me stay with him during weekdays so that I can go home on the weekends. What’s wrong with that plan?”

“That you won’t actually be spending much time with Phil at all as you will be going to lectures and studying all the time. You’d go home on the days you’d actually be able to hang out with Phil.”

“No, that’s not what this is about. Don’t bullshit me. This isn’t about me, this is about you.”

Evzynn shrugged, “You’re smarter than you look.” He sat down on Dan’s bed and Dan looked at him questioningly.

“Erazniel.” Evzynn simply said, “He has been ordered to be with Phil at all times because of your bond. If you were to live in Manchester you’d automatically spend a lot of time with Phil because let’s be honest here, if you had the chance to spend entire days with Phil and just go back home to sleep you would you definitely would.”

“You want me to move to Manchester because you want to spend time with Erazniel?” Dan felt rage bubbling in his stomach but he tried to remain calm. Without giving Evzynn a chance to rectify his words, Dan lashed out at him, “That’s what this is about? You want to make me do something I don’t want to do because you want to hang out with your friend? I didn’t ask for this! I never asked for some guy to come control my life and tell me to move away because he has friends somewhere else. I didn’t. I didn’t ask for it. And honestly, I don’t want it. Can’t you just leave me alone? I can make my own choices and live my own life. I don’t want someone else to be in control of my life. I don’t want to move away just because someone else wants me to.”

Evzynn jumped up, “Well, I didn’t ask for you to break the part of your brain that keeps your sane. I didn’t want you to get rebellious and rebel against everything I want you to do. Why did it have to be me? I didn’t ask for you. If you were still normal you’d have moved to Manchester a long time ago.”

“Normal? That’s what you call the other people? The zombies who are unaware of the fact that they are not actually in charge of their lives and choices? That is not normal, that is sick. Leave me alone. I’m not moving to Manchester. Get out of my room.”

“I can’t leave. You know that. I have to stay with you as ordered by Elikae Government.”

“Yeah and you can shove that order where the sun doesn’t shine. I don’t fucking care. Punch them all in the fucking face for me.”

“Dan, you’re putting yourself in danger.”

“Leave.” Dan said, suddenly very calm and reserved. He pointed at the door, “I don’t care where you go. Just stop bothering me and let me live my life the way I want to. You’ve controlled me for eighteen years and I’m done with it. You had no right.”

Evzynn nodded slowly, “If that’s how you see it. I’ll leave. Don’t come running to me when they send Elikae Hitmen to kill you because I’m not there anymore to assure them that you aren’t a threat to the humans or the Elikae.”

“I’ll become a threat to you if you don’t leave right now.”

Evzynn disappeared into nowhere with a horribly angry expression on his face, but Dan couldn’t bring himself to care. When Phil texted him he threw the phone onto his bed without reading it and started playing videogames.

He tried really hard not to think about the fact that playing videogames alone was a lot less fun than with your best friend by your side.

Honestly, Dan wouldn’t really mind moving to Manchester. It was just the fact that the Elikae thought they could make him do anything they wanted that bothered him.

He didn’t see Evzynn for the next few days. The exam results were in a month so in a month he would know for sure if he’d passed his exams and would be going to university. He was going to have to make a choice within this month: keeping his dignity and refusing to move to Manchester or giving his dignity up and agreeing to move to Manchester.

Lately he’d been thinking about what the best way was to tell Evzynn he was going to move to Manchester without losing his dignity and without giving Evzynn the impression that if the Elik just threw a hissy fit Dan would eventually agree to do whatever it was that he wanted of him. So far he had come up with zero ideas to get this done.

Two weeks after their fight Evzynn showed up again. Dan had to admit to himself that he was relieved, even though this meant that his time to think about a good way to tell Evzynn that he wanted to go to Manchester anyway was up.

Evzynn looked messed up, he had bags under his eyes and his face looked even paler than it usually did. He’d always been taller than Dan, but he had his shoulders hunched over and Dan could even look him in the eyes without having to distort his neck in three different ways.

“Are you okay?” He asked.

“Do I look okay to you?”  
“No. That’s why I asked to make sure.”

“Thanks.”  
“No that’s not what I meant.”

“I know I look horrible. They won’t let me back in until I agreed to get back to being your shadow. I’ve been on the run for the past two weeks because half of the Elikae want to somehow force me to go back to you to make sure you don’t become a serial killer or something.”

“Who won’t let you back in?”  
Evzynn sat down, “See, usually that would be a stupid question, but at the moment it isn’t, really. I don’t know. A spokesman of the government told me I wasn’t welcome until I made up with you. But I’m pretty sure the government has fallen.”

“Fallen? As in there is currently no government?”  
“Correct. Everyone disagreed with each other on what the best way to handle you was. Some Elikae from outside of the government got violent and started trying to assassinate the politicians with whom they didn’t agree. It got so bad that the politicians kind of just got used to it and I heard from someone that they started saying ‘good morning, I see the assassins have failed again’ to each other every morning. So they withdrew them for their own safety. Now there’s no one responsible for you but me. So you can imagine the fuss over me leaving you. So here I am, back to making sure you don’t do Jack The Ripper on me.”

Dan smiled, “Sorry for yelling at you. I shouldn’t have lashed out like that. I’ve changed my mind, by the way.” He sneaked it in as nonchalantly as he could but it didn’t work and Evzynn immediately jumped on it, “You mean you’re going to Manchester?”

“Yes.” But he quickly added, seeing that Evzynn was opening his mouth to say something, “But not because of you. You were the reason I said no in the first place. I didn’t want you to think you could just make me do whatever you wanted me to. I may have shouted it at you whilst throwing a tantrum, but I meant it. I want to live my own life and I want to be in control of my own choices. I want to move to Manchester for university, not so that you can be closer to Erazniel. Know your place.”

Evzynn grinned, “Oh, I know my place. And it’s above you. Mind you, kid.”

Dan smiled back at him, “Watch me.”

The short notice on which they’d been given the invitation to go to Jamaica to test some cameras had long been forgiven and forgotten now that the actual vacation was coming closer and close. Dan hadn’t been this excited for something in a long time. His mum had been hesitant to let him go as it was quite far away and she wasn’t completely comfortable with having him be so far away from here. ‘I can take Manchester, Jamaica is just too far’, she’d said. But eventually she’d given permission and Dan had been the last of the group of Youtubers to announce that they were coming too.

Phil was coming, of course, and although spending a week in Jamaica was a great thing to look forward to, spending a week in Jamaica with Phil was an absolutely amazing thing to look forward to. They spent a lot of time together at Phil’s house in the weeks leading up to the trip, Dan finished his exams at the end of February so their weekends together had changed into weeks and months together. They spend their days playing videogames and talking about the trip. They both couldn’t wait, had a lot of plans and video ideas and were generally stoked.

The chatter about swimming, diving and tanning distracted them from playing any game to their full capacity and they set a personal best on losing the most consecutive games.

Evzynn had visited Jamaica just to see what it was like; after all he could easily just transport there or whatever it was that he did. He’d told Dan about what their hotel looked like, how big the pool was and how close they would be to the sea. Which were things Dan couldn’t share with Phil as Phil would start questioning how he knew but he could be excited about these things by himself. Phil and him had scrolled through every single available picture of their hotel on the internet.

Spending nine hours on a plane wasn’t high up op Dan’s list of things he enjoyed doing. Spending nine consecutive hours with Phil, however, was on that list. Though he usually meant playing videogames and eating pizza for nine hours by that, having Phil next to him on the plane made the flight a lot more relaxed and actually quite enjoyable.

They watched some movies together, insulted the bad special effects in the old black and white horror films, and both fell asleep whilst watching Bolt.

Dan was used to getting on planes, falling asleep, and then waking up during the landing. But when he woke up this time there was still three more hours to go and as he didn’t want to wake up Phil he spend another hour messing around with the other Youtubers and being a disturbance to fellow passengers. He enjoyed himself, but although he usually joked about his poor social skills, they did bother him a lot and Phil wasn’t next to him ready to save him from telling a bad joke or awkwardly laughing when he didn’t know what to say.

Phil woke up when there were still two hours to go and he joined Dan and the other Youtubers who were playing cards. Dan was losing –he had no clue what he was doing but he was pretending that he did- and Phil got on Dan’s team to guide him away from being in last place.

The view he had when walking away from the plane beat all his views from high in the sky from when he was still on the plane. A big group of Youtubers, most of them talking to the cameras in their hands, walking towards a huge white building with a gorgeous blue sea and mountains behind them. Dan had the feeling that his heart was going to explode. He felt like he belonged, right here within this big group of smiling, laughing, filming young people. who were drawing the attention of bystanders and were all just so happy to be where they were. He belonged here, with them. He subconsciously started walking closer to Phil, who smiled at him, “We’re here.” He said.

Dan just nodded, he couldn’t stop smiling and if he didn’t control himself he would start dancing around. “Do you know that book, The Perks Of Being A Wallflower?” He asked.

Phil raised his eyebrows, “Er- no.”

“There’s this quote… It goes like ‘And in that moment, I swear we were infinite.’”

Phil put a hand on his back, “Do you feel infinite?”

“Look at us,” Dan replied, “We’re this group of young people, excited about life and living. Just extremely happy with all these opportunities and this life. None of us had this as their original life plan, it kind of just happened. And we’re all so thankful that it did. We’re just drawing attention of all these other people. They see a bunch of people laughing and filming themselves and each other. Yes, I do feel infinite.”

“I think it’d be safe to say that your definition of feeling infinite is feeling such happiness that it feels like this moment is never going to end and you’re going to be this happy forever.”

“It does feel like this moment is going to go on forever. I’m never going to be this happy again.”

“Yes you will. You’ll be feeling this happy many more times. But for now, just live in this moment. You’re infinite right now, Dan. Take advantage of it.”

“Take advantage of it.” Dan repeated. And then he just started dancing. He didn’t really know why; he always insisted that he couldn’t dance and he never wanted to dance when people could see him, afraid of getting judged; but he just couldn’t help himself. Phil was smiling at him happily and he couldn’t stop himself from laughing.

The other Youtubers filmed him and some started dancing along.

We’re all feeling infinite, it’s not just me, Dan thought to himself as he watched Phil join in too. If only this moment could just never end. He’d give everything to keep reliving this moment forever.

He was Dan Howell, and eighteen year old British kid who was dancing around with a bunch of young people who all earned their money by making YouTube videos at an airport in Jamaica. If someone had told him a year ago that this was where he would be in one year, best friends with his idol, dancing around with him in Jamaica, he would have never believed it. But this was actually his life. He couldn’t be happier and there was no way his life could possibly have gone any better in any way. It was a weird feeling of euphoria and a feeling of complete happiness mixed with the thought that this moment was going to last forever even though he knew it wasn’t that made it perfect. That made him want to dance around and hug everyone and shout: “Isn’t life wonderful? Isn’t everything perfect?” At anyone who would listen. Phil had stopped dancing, he was now looking at Dan with a bright smile on his face and the fact that he was in absolute awe could be read off his face.

Maybe this moment of infinity was going to end, but at least it felt like it was going to last forever right now. And that was all that mattered.


	9. Chapter 9

The week went by way too fast.  
Dan hadn’t expected to actually do all of the things him and Phil had talked about, but they did. They swam, dove, jumped off cliffs, tried their hand at surfing, wrestled on rafts and ate the most amazing foods.  
Weeks like these shouldn’t be allowed to end, Dan decided. The Elikae or whoever just had to think of a way to let these moments live forever. Dan hadn’t stopped smiling for a week and he was pretty sure he’d even smiled in his sleep. He had dreamt about being in Jamaica every night and real life never disappointed him. Dan couldn’t have thought of better activities to do himself, almost forgot to film even though the whole reason that they were even in Jamaica was that they’d gotten new cameras to test. And testing this company’s cameras was the least he could do in exchange for getting one of the best weeks of his life.

On the last day whilst Phil and him were packing their bags Dan had randomly turned around and hugged Phil. Phil hadn’t understood why, but he’d just hugged back and neither of them let go for a good few minutes. Dan had wanted to thank him. Thank him for being there during this trip, thank him for making it so amazing, thank him for every time he had saved him when he’d gotten into an awkward social situation which could have possibly left a black mark on this week. And most of all he wanted to thank him for just existing. For just living next to him and going on this adventure with him. For taking him in and letting him be with him. For being Phil.

But he couldn’t say anything, hadn’t known how to put it into words as he was sure he would start crying. So he’d hugged him, hoped that that would get the message across. Which it had, as Phil had his arms wrapped tightly around him and said those three words for the first time, “I love you.”  
So that was how you put all those feelings into words.

“I love you too.” No hesitation. It was exactly what he’d been trying to say by initiating the hug, but he hadn’t known how put all of his Thank You’s into something small and meaningful.  
Telling Phil all his Thank You’s would make for a lot of opportunity to start crying and although just saying ‘I love you too’ took about two seconds to say, it was enough opportunity for tears to start falling anyway. It wasn’t really crying, it was just wet eyes and wet cheeks. No sobbing or hiccupping.  
He was pretty sure Phil could see it on his face when they finally let go of each other, but he didn’t say anything and just smiled at him and continued packing.  
He only noticed Evzynn and Erazniel when Phil had gotten back to folding his shorts and Dan was still stood in the middle of the room, unsure of what to do.  
Evzynn was just smiling at them, Erazniel opened his mouth and instead of the nonsense Dan had expected he heard understandable words.  
English.

“I’m sorry you have to leave.”  
It was the most surprised Dan had ever been in his life and the two Elikae could apparently read it off his face. “Wait,” Evzynn started, “You can understand him?”  
Dan nodded slowly.  
Their reaction wasn’t exactly what Dan expected, they looked at each other and smiled broadly and he could hear Evzynn softly say, “I told you so.”  
But he couldn’t ask them what it was about although his curiosity was eating at him. He started packing bags and him and Phil were quiet for the remainder of their time in Jamaica.  
All that had to be said had been said.  
Their I Love You’s had said enough to fill up their silence.

Walking back to the plane was a little less spectacular than walking way from it. Though the big group was walking together again, smiling and laughing and a lot more tan than a week ago, they didn’t look quite as energetic, as if they could take on the entire world as long as they were together. They looked tired but content and Dan felt another kind of happiness. He was satisfied.  
Happy with what had happened and what they’d done. Happy with what they’d accomplished. 

Some of them slept for the entirety of the nine hours, the others sat slouched in their seats with earphones in, mindlessly staring at the small screen in front of them. Dan and Phil belonged to the latter. Neither of them even knew what the were watching but they did know that there was a lot of violence in the movie and they did not have the energy to even flinch whenever someone’s face got sliced in two by an axe. Dan rubbed his eyes and tried to stay awake but after an hour of trying he fell asleep anyway. 

The first thing he realised when he woke up was that his head had sunk down onto Phil shoulder and upon trying to raise his head he realised that Phil’s was resting on his and he could not move without waking the other. So he stayed in place and watched the movie that was currently playing on the small screen in front of them. He was pretty sure the movie playing was some kind of B-rated Romcom and but he didn’t care enough to change the channel. After staying in the same position for a while he decided that it was actually quite comfortable and he didn’t mind that he couldn’t lift up his head.  
Phil woke up about half an hour after him when one of the stewardesses walked past with the food cart and quietly asked Dan if he was hungry, to which Dan replied that he’d like two sandwiches –still with his head on Phil’s shoulder -the stewardess probably thought they were a couple-. “Does your boyfriend want anything to eat?” –she did indeed think so- “Yeah, we’ll share the sandwiches, it’s okay. Two is enough.” He didn’t care enough to correct her.

“We’ll share what?” Phil murmured, still halfasleep but apparently awake enough to have heard what Dan said.  
“I’m getting you a sandwich. Go back to sleep.” Dan replied softly.  
“Why are you so close to my ear.”  
Dan chuckled, “I’m going to pay for these sandwiches, do you have a second?”  
“Hm.” Phil hummed.  
Dan awkwardly reached for his wallet in his back pocket whilst trying not to disturb Phil and gave up on trying to get the money from it himself as he could only see inside it when he tilted it and that would make the money fall out. So he handed it to the stewardess, who took some coins out and handed it back to him along with his sandwiches before continuing to walk down the aisle.

“Phil?” Dan whispered softly.  
“Yes?”  
“Just checking if you were still awake. Do you want a sandwich?” He held one up even though Phil had his eyes clothes and couldn’t see it anyway.  
“Hm.. Yes.” He lifted his head from Dan and rubbed his eyes. Dan mimicked his movements. “Why were we sleeping like this?” Phil asked as he took his sandwich from Dan’s hands.  
“Don’t know, I woke up like that and realised I couldn’t lift my head. So I just stayed like that because I didn’t want to wake you up.”  
“Thanks.”  
“No problem.”  
“How much longer till we get back to the UK?”  
Dan checked his phone, “About four hours.”  
Phil groaned, which earned him a lot of annoyed looks but a chuckle from Dan, “Please tell me there’s at least something good on TV.”  
“Well,” Dan laughed, “A Romcom. And so far the only thing I’ve picked up is that that woman is very needy and that man can’t do shit.”  
Phil ran a hand through his hair, “Four more hours on this plane, shitty airplane food, my neck hurts and I’m tired.”  
“Well Mr. Sunshine, the world isn’t all cheers and Jamaica.”  
Phil laughed, “At least we felt infinite around this time last week.”  
“Don’t make fun of me.”  
Phil immediately turned to look at him, “I’m not making fun of you. I like the quote. I was going to ask if I could borrow your copy of the book it’s from. I wasn’t making fun of you at all.”  
“Oh.”

They were quiet for a few minutes as they ate their greasy aeroplane food and finished the bottle of water they’d bought at the airport in Jamaica.  
“Isn’t it weird to think that these moments are never coming back? As soon as a moment has passed it is just a memory. Maybe it won’t even be a memory. Maybe it will just be forgotten. Maybe there’s a certain second in time that every single person has forgotten because nothing eventful happened for anyone in that second. Every time we think back of a memory we remember the last time we remembered that memory, we don’t actually remember the memory itself.”  
“You’re just a walking encyclopaedia.”  
“I enjoy facts.” Dan argued.  
“I don’t think there’s one second that everyone has forgotten about. Every second is part of the worst moment of someone’s life. But it’s also part of the best moment of someone else’s life. Every second has a purpose to someone, just not to everyone.”  
“That moment last week was the best moment of my life, that’s for sure.”  
“It’s high up on my list as well.”  
“But when I think of it in a few years I will be remembering the last time I remembered it and not the actual event. It’s sad, really.”  
“But it does mean that every time you remember that memory you got a little happier in that small moment. And maybe that’s worth something too.”  
“Very happy moments will lead to at least a little bit happy moments of remembering that very happy moment.”

After hugging him tightly his mum pulled an envelope out of her handbag, “Guess what came in the mail?”  
Dan immediately recognised the logo in the corner and grabbed it out of his mother’s hand, “Do you know it yet?” He asked.  
She shook her head and Dan ripped it open. Phil was standing next to him smiling broadly, “I’m sure you did great.” He assured the boy next to him.  
“Oh God, oh God, oh God.” Dan murmured as his eyes scanned the unnecessary words on the letter, searching for that one word…  
“Congratulations!” He shouted and he nearly tackled his mother to the ground in an attempt to hug her, “I did it! I’m done with high school!”  
“You’re coming to Manchester.” Phil added excitedly.  
“I’m moving to Manchester and I’m going to go to university.”

“You’re growing up.” His mum smiled with tears in her eyes, “I should go email the guy from that dorm you had your eye on.”  
High school hadn’t been to good on Dan; he’d spend most of his time hating himself and everyone around him whilst not doing homework and playing videogames. He didn’t think he’d pass all of his exams in one go, but he’d done it. He’d finished high school and he never had to go back there. He could leave it behind him now and move on with his life.  
It seemed a bit twisted to be happy to get out of one school and immediately start at a new school which was going to be more difficult and was going to take up more of his time.  
But he was happy, he was so happy. He could finally leave all the teachers behind and with Phil by his side he wasn’t the only one without a best friend anymore. Always being a second choice to all of his friends suddenly didn’t seem as bad anymore; they were now his second choices too.  
He was ready to start making new friends at university and start his new life as a university student in Manchester.

“Where do you want this thing? What even is it?”  
“Er- I don’t know just put it with the rest of the questionable objects, I don’t know either.”  
Dan was busy attaching his six favourite pictures to the wall above his bed and Phil was going through the boxes that were covering the entire floor. The entire room was a mess, boxes, clothes, posters, videogames, CD’s and books were lying everywhere and Dan had forgotten what the floor even looked like.  
The chaos was complete when they heard a phone go off. Dan knew it was his; that was the ringtone set specially for his mother. “Quick, find it. My mum’s calling me.”

“Yeah, I’ll just quickly find it, no problem. Maybe it’s in one of these 30 boxes? Or in the wardrobe? Perhaps somewhere among the mess in that corner? Or maybe that mess over there?”  
“Yeah okay, I get it. I get it.” Dan replied as he threw some stuff off the boxes in a desperate search for that stupid phone.  
“Found it.” Phil held the device up in the air triumphantly and handed it to Dan.  
“Yes? Mum?”  
“Hey sweetie, how is unpacking going?”  
“Yeah, it’s er- it’s going great. Phil is with me, he’s helping me. I didn’t know I had this much stuff.”  
His mum laughed, “How many boxes are there?”  
“Like 30.”  
“That’ll keep you busy for a while.”  
“I forgot what the floor looks like.”  
Phil had started putting clothes on the hangers and hanging them in the wardrobe and when Dan finished calling he started picking his clothes up from the random places on the floor where they’d somehow ended up and joined Phil in trying to get them all to fit in the small wardrobe. When they left for dinner all the clothes had been tidied up and although the entire room was still a mess they were proud of themselves.

They had ten days together before Dan’s classes started and instead of making good use of them by unpacking all of Dan’s stuff, making sure Dan had all the pens and notebooks he needed and figuring out what trains Dan had to take to get to his lectures, they spend those ten days watching TV and making videos in Phil’s flat –in order to get to his bed in Dan’s dorm he still had to climb over a wall of boxes so they’d decided to just hang out at Phil’s- and they tried not to think about how Dan was going to have to spend a lot of time working for university in a few days and how they wouldn’t see each other as much.  
Evzynn and Erazniel were still with them at all times and all though Evzynn complained about the mess in Dan’s dorm and threatened to just move in with Phil instead, Dan got closer to both of them and he could say that they were now friends. 

Maybe it was childish, but Phil got on the train along with Dan on the morning of Dan’s first lecture and dropped him off at university. Dan was stoked, but when he watched Phil wave at him and then turn around and walk away from the campus he felt a bit empty inside. As if by attending university he was leaving a part of himself in Phil’s flat which he couldn’t get back unless he was with Phil.  
His first lecture was Contracts and when he walked out he felt like he’d learnt absolutely nothing and had only gotten more confused than he was when he’d walked in.  
He texted Phil and bought a sandwich in the café before sitting down in the University Garden to go through his notes from the lecture, trying to understand what they meant.  
“Freshman?” A voice next to him asked. A boy who was probably about a year older than him flopped down next to him on the bench.

Dan nodded, “Just had my first lecture and I have no idea what the guy was saying.”  
The boy laughed, “Yeah, that’s normal, don’t worry about it. My name’s Percy. I’m a sophomore as of today.”  
Dan’s phone went off and he recognised the ringtone he’d set for Phil, “Sorry, I’ve got to take this.” He said quickly as he whipped out his phone.

“Girlfriend?” Percy grinned.  
“No, no. I don’t have a girlfriend.”  
“Boyfriend?”  
Dan laughed, “No, don’t have a boyfriend either.” He picked up the phone and held it to his ear, “Phil?”  
“How was it?”  
“Well, I didn’t understand any of it. Can I call you back later?”  
“Oh sorry, am I interrupting something?”  
“Little bit, but it’s okay. I’ll call you back, okay?”  
“Yep, go make friends, Daniel.” And Dan could hear that he was smiling.  
“So your name is Phil?” Percy asked as Dan put his phone back in his pocket.  
“No, that’s my friend's name.” He pointed to his pocket in which he’d just put his phone. “My name’s Dan.”  
“Is your friend Phil not at uni?”  
“No, he’s 23, he’s finished university already.”  
“You’ve got friends with experience, you’ve thought this whole university thing through, haven’t you?”  
Dan laughed, “Not really. I met Phil before even knowing whether I was going to attend university or not. To be honest, I haven’t thought this plan through at all and I’m pretty sure it’s going to turn out to be one of the worst plans I’ve ever had.”


	10. Chapter 10

A week after starting university Dan started getting stomach aches, it wasn’t that bad, but just enough to be concerned about. So he went to the doctor’s, got some pills and spend the rest of the night at Phil’s insisting that he had to be taken care of and making Phil get him food. (“I’m going to get you back for this, watch me.”)  
But the pills didn’t work. And as one of the listed side effects was ‘death’ –it literally said death on the manual- he decided to stop taking them. Lazy as he was, he hadn’t gotten around to setting another appointment at the doctor’s and the doctor had said that it wasn’t a very big deal so he kept putting it off until his stomach ache become so unbearable that he couldn’t do more than lying on Phil’s couch, curled up into a ball.

He hadn’t been at his own dorm in two days as his stomach hurt too much to make the walk to the lift. The walks to the bathroom were difficult enough as they were.  
Phil hated hospitals with a burning passion, but after two days of lying on the couch hardly moving he told Dan to get up and come along to the hospital as he had set an appointment himself (“If you’re not going to do it, I will.”).  
The waiting room was full of bikers and junkies who looked like they were ready to kill a man and Dan feared for their lives as they sat down on the bench furthest away from everyone else. He regretted wearing skinny jeans and for the first time he was happy that his hair had gotten a bit curly and their haircuts weren’t exact parallels anymore.

“We’re going to die.” Dan murmured.  
Phil tried his hardest not to grin, “I tried saving your life by bringing you here but I’ve probably just brought the both of us to our deaths.”  
“Stop. Don’t make me laugh it hurts my stomach.”  
“Speaking of stomachs, how are you holding up?”  
“I’m dealing. To be honest it’s less severe than when I was on the couch.”  
“Maybe if we leave now we’ll survive and you could just sit in the same position for the rest of your life.”  
But before Dan could reply, his name was called by a nurse, “Daniel Howell?”  
Phil quickly got up and helped Dan to his feet, “Get your hands off me. If they see that I can’t properly get up on my own I’m showing weakness and they’ll definitely murder me.” Dan whispered.  
Phil chuckled, “You’re an even easier target if you drop to the floor here.” He guided Dan into the doctor’s office and as soon as the nurse closed the door behind them, cutting them off from the bikers and junkies they both started laughing. The doctor gave them a peculiar look and they both reacted by pretending to cough, which made the whole thing even more awkward.

“Which one of you is Daniel?”  
“Me.” Dan replied, offering the doctor his hand.  
“Sit down, please. Both of you.” Doctor Hampton said when he’d shaken Dan’s hand and introduced himself. Dan obeyed gratefully and as soon as Phil was sure that Dan was alright he sat down too.  
“So, Daniel. You told a nurse that you have been having very bad stomach aches for a few weeks now?”  
Dan nodded, “They were just some tummy rumblings at first, but then they turned into stomach aches that kept getting worse until I couldn’t do anything but lie on the couch.”  
Doctor Hampton nodded thoughtfully, “If you could remove your top, so that I can perform some tests, please, that would be convenient.” He looked at Phil when he’d said this, as if trying to ask if he was staying whilst Dan undressed. Phil avoided eye contact.  
Dan pulled his T-shirt over his head as gently as he could, but the fact that he was moving at all hurt anyway. Doctor Hampton made him lie down on the examination table and Dan threw his T-shirt at Phil before lying down.

The doctor’s fingers on his stomach where not only painful, but also very uncomfortable. His stomach wasn’t much of a place where he wanted a stranger’s hands, but he lay still, staring at the ceiling and truthfully answering his questions until the doctor removed his hands and nodded, “The doctor who gave you the pills, what was his name again?”  
“Doctor Asher.” Dan replied.  
“Yes. Doctor Asher’s suspicions were correct. This is appendicitis. Nurse Holly, if you would be nice enough to bring Daniel up to his room. You can get surgery to get your appendix removed tomorrow.”  
Nice. A surgery. Tomorrow. Great. Fantastic. Something to look forward to. How nice.  
Nurse Holly took the two boys upstairs –Dan got put in a hospital gown before he was allowed in his room- and she attached Dan to a drip before leaving them alone.  
“Well,” Phil began, “The bad part is that you’re going to get surgery tomorrow. The good part is that after that you won’t be having stomach aches anymore.”  
“Great.” Dan sighed, “They’ve given me lots of time to mentally prepare for the operation. I appreciate that a lot.”

Phil chuckled, “Aren’t they a bounteous bunch of people?”  
“How long till visiting hours are over?”  
Phil glanced at the clock hanging above Dan’s head, “About an hour. But when they come in to kick me out I’ll just hide. It’s okay.”  
“Of course you will.” Dan laughed, “Though in the great scheme of things, I’ve got time off from uni and I’m actually not in a place to complain about anything.”  
“Surgeries aren’t that bad,” Phil added, “You fall asleep and wake up feeling better and maybe a little lightheaded.”  
“Let’s make a deal now; if I say weird stuff tomorrow, you won’t tell anyone about it. Nor will you remember it.”  
“I can’t control what I remember.”  
“I’m sure I’ll say some pretty weird shit, so let’s just say that you won’t bring any of it up when I’m sober again. Also, don’t hold me accountable if I accidentally hurt your feelings.”  
“Oh no, maybe you’ll hurt my feelings. That would be horrible. I thought we had something special, Dan. How could you?”  
“It’s not you, it’s me.” Dan played along.

Phil did get kicked out.  
He managed to stay for another 30 minutes after one of the nurses told him it was time to go, but when she came in again he quickly patted Dan’s head, wished him good luck, and promised to be there when he woke up.

Dan couldn’t get to sleep that night. He wasn’t just nervous about the surgery, but his mum had called him in a state and Dan felt guilty for not even thinking of calling her. She told him Phil had called her when he’d gotten home from the hospital and explained to her what happened. He spent about fifteen minutes talking to her on the phone before the same nurse came in again and told him that it was time to go to bed and that he was keeping the guy lying opposite him awake.

Strangely enough she didn’t come in to warn the man that he was keeping Dan awake when he felt the need to groan in pain with every breath the entire night. Dan stared up at the ceiling, trying to block the noise out; but with every passing minute the urge to start throwing random objects at the guy grew stronger and stronger up to the point where he could hardly suppress the urge.  
Of course, when being awake for about 25 consecutive hours you get hungry. So at about two in the morning Dan started to feel hungry and he mentally cursed himself for not having fallen asleep yet.  
He woke up at half past ten and spend the first half minute of being awake wondering when the hell he’d fallen asleep in the first place before noticing Phil sitting beside his bed, reading a magazine which he clearly wasn’t interested in in the slightest. “Morning.” Dan mumbled with a hoarse voice.  
Phil looked up and gratefully tossed the magazine aside, “Thank God you’re up. I was this close to actually boring myself to death. What’s up with that guy behind you, by the way? When I came in he just went “Ow” every few seconds for at least fifteen minutes before falling asleep.

“Be glad you only heard him for fifteen minutes. He kept me up all night. I’m surprised I even fell asleep at all.”  
“You don’t look like you’ve slept. You look more like you’ve just spent an hour trying to iron your face and failing miserably.”  
“Gee, thanks Phil. I appreciate the encouraging words.”  
“Do you want to hear something sad?”  
“Nope, not really.”  
“Vincent Van Gogh’s last words were “la tristesse durera toujours”.” He looked at Dan thoughtfully and Dan just raised his eyebrows and shook his head, “I took German, Phil. I have no idea what you just said to me.”  
“The sadness lasts forever.” Phil replied, “That’s the same guy who swallowed yellow paint because he thought it would make him happy from the inside out.”  
“That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard, I think I’m going to cry.”  
“Now you feel better about your own situation though, don’t you? You aren’t going to die and you’re certainly not going to die feeling like you’re going to spend the rest of eternity being sad.”  
“Poor guy. But I’m still nervous about the upcoming surgery, your sad story didn’t cure my nerves.”  
“Do you need a hug?”  
“I think Vincent Van Gogh needs a hug more than I do.” Dan said.  
Phil nodded in agreement, “Poor guy just wanted to be loved. Spent his entire life looking for someone who’d at least appreciate him.”  
“Don’t you just wish you could go back in time and hug the poor guy? I mean, after he killed himself he got famous and his paintings became worth millions of pounds. Someone should build a TARDIS and go back in time to tell him that.”  
“If you think about it, the dreams of most inspirational people came true, just not in their time. Women and men now have the same rights, black and white are equal and now lots of countries are legalising gay marriage. All these famous people defending people’s rights got what they wanted. All these famous painters became famous and got their recognition after their death. Maybe you have to be dead to be truly appreciated by the world.”  
“As they say, to get attention you must either be pretty or dead.”  
“On a completely unrelated note, when’s your surgery?” Phil asked.  
“Don’t know. They wrote it on a note but I was too lazy to look at it.”  
“Where is it?”  
“Nightstand.”  
Phil picked up the piece of paper lying on the small table beside Dan’s hospital bed and quickly read what it said, “Twelve.” He stated, “They wrote it down because they thought you weren’t going to remember it.”  
“I feel like they know me so well already.”  
“I think it’s because they’ve put you on painkillers. You are more philosophical than you usually are this morning, maybe it’s the pills.”  
“I am no more philosophical than I usually am. How dare you assume that.”  
“Give me a shout when you’ve sobered up and are ready to talk.” Phil laughed, “Has your mum called you yet?”  
“Yeah, she has. I felt really guilty for not thinking of calling her or my dad, to be honest. But she was too relieved that I was okay to even think about the fact that you only called her when I’d already been admitted to the hospital.”  
“She just wants you to be safe. She doesn’t care how I get it done as long as I make sure you’re okay.”  
“My mum’s a bit protective of me.” Dan admitted, “But she’s great. I love her.”  
Just as Phil opened his mouth to reply, a nurse came in and smiled a creepily friendly smile at them, “Daniel, your surgery is in about an hour, do you need anything?”  
“I’m hungry but I’m not allowed to eat, so I’m going to say no to that one.”  
“Have you used the bathroom today?”  
“I have not. But I haven’t eaten in a few hours either so I don’t have to go. Phil here will take me if I change my mind, right Phil?”  
Phil nodded, “Yup, all taken care of.”

As soon as the nurse left the room Dan spoke up, “I’m willing to bet my lungs that she thinks we’re in a relationship and is just too polite to ask.”  
“Don’t bet one of your healthy organs on it, bet one of your ill organs.”  
“My appendix is currently my only ill organ, or so I hope.”  
“Then bet your appendix.”  
“Okay, I bet my appendix that she thinks you’re my boyfriend.”  
“I am though.” Phil winked suggestively and Dan laughed and shoved his arm playfully in reply. “It better be your only ill organ though, I’ll end you if you end up having a serious illness.”  
“Sorry, I’ll just erase my terminal illness if it bothers you.”  
“It does indeed bother me. Put your illness away, Dan, this is not the time.” Phil said, “Are you feeling better though? Is your stomach still bothering you?”  
“Phil, my friend, I’ve got this drip attached to me and honestly I’m at least 4% sure that it’s pumping painkillers into my bloodstream right at this very moment.”  
“It better be. But I was just checking. So do you need to use the bathroom?”  
“Might as well, we’ve got an entire hour to waste and I have no idea what the options are with me occupying this hospital bed.”  
“I think the toilet is down the hall. Can you get out of bed by yourself or do you need help?”  
“Phil, I’m not disabled or anything.” But he let Phil help him up gratefully anyway and he leaned on the older boy all the way to the bathrooms.  
“I’m going to let go of you now, okay? Can you stand on your own?”

“Yeah.” Dan carefully stumbled towards one of the cubicles and upon locking it he noticed that it could not actually be locked. The only thing that happened when he attempted to lock the door was that a small circle above the door handle on the outside of the cubicle turned red, indicating that it was taken.  
“It isn’t locking.” Dan determined.  
“I’ll make sure no one comes in. Just go.” Phil assured him.

Dan didn’t like public bathrooms. It wasn’t even the fact that the hygiene levels were probably dropping below zero, it was the fact that other people could hear him pee. He didn’t know why he disliked it so much, as a matter of fact, what else was he supposed to be doing in that stupid little cubicle? It would actually be weirder to not hear someone pee when in a public bathroom. But nevertheless he disliked people knowing that he was peeing. It felt like an invasion of his privacy.  
He didn’t expect hospital bathrooms to be unhygienic. The complete opposite was the case, he knew they’d be clean, it was a hospital, for heaven’s sake, of course it was as sterile as a public bathroom could possibly be.

But who knew who’d used the bathroom before him? Maybe a little kid with poor coordination who’d peed all over the floor. Maybe an old man who’d taken his time to sit down. You could never know who’d used the toilet before you and that was an unpleasant thought as he stood there in the small cubicle, surrounded by the almost too white walls which colours were so characteristic for hospitals.  
There wasn’t a hospital in the world that didn’t have the too white walls and that same distinct hospital smell.  
As he flushed the toilet, pushed the door open and welcomed Phil’s hands on his shoulder, steadying his feet’s grip on the white tiles he realised that someone was going to use that same cubicle he just used later. And that person was going to wonder the exact same thing he just had. Who’d used it before? Was it safe to touch anything inside the cubicle or was there a chance he’d catch some kind of horrific illness?  
He washed his hands, Phil’s careful hands still on his shoulders, and decided that all these unnecessary thoughts were probably the painkillers’ fault. He couldn’t stop thinking about these random things that seemed to matter so much one moment and seemed to be absolutely pathetic the next.

“How long till surgery?” He asked.  
“About 45 minutes, I think. Then they’ll take you to the prep room.”  
“That sounds strangely sexual.”  
“I really hope that’s the painkillers talking, but knowing you it probably isn’t.” Phil said.  
“La tristesse durera toujours.” Dan exclaimed.  
“What do you even mean by that?”  
“Don’t look at me, you’re the one randomly telling me about Vincent Van Gogh’s last words. I’m not the Debbie downer here.”  
Phil seemed to want to say something but decided against it and nodded as he started to guide Dan back to his hospital room.

On their way out they walked past a mirror and Dan caught a glimpse of himself. He was almost six feet tall, but looked small and tired. This stupid cart was just rolling after him wherever he went, attached to a needle going into his hand. He looked like a seriously ill person, whilst in reality he was far from just that. He was healthy, he thought, he just had one ill organ in his body and it was about to be taken out. And maybe it was the painkillers talking again, but it suddenly seemed unreasonable to just take out an ill organ instead of trying to cure it. It was like leaving a group member behind because they couldn’t keep up with the rest of the group anymore. No excuses or goodbyes, just a cold harsh “you don’t function well enough anymore” and that was that and that was the end.  
But his appendix didn’t have feelings, whereas a group member would. So maybe thinking about it in this way was kind of like the way little kids would put so many stuffed animals in their bed that they hardly fit among them themselves, just because they didn’t want the stuffed animals on the floor and the shelves to feel left out.

The fact that the stuffed animals didn’t actually have any feelings and would not care whether it would spend the night on the floor or next to the child didn’t seem to matter to a child. Maybe that was the reason why people were always hit the hardest with the realisation that something really bad had happened somewhere when they saw stuffed animals lying around in the remains of a city that had been hit by a tornado; because the kids saw their stuffed animals as a part of their family and would not voluntarily leave them behind. And adult subconsciously knew that.  
He lied back down in his bed that was too white and pullet the covers that were too white over his body. His painkiller-induced thoughts were chasing out his rational thoughts and his mind couldn’t stop over thinking. It tired him to the point where he had to force himself to keep his eyes open and pay attention to Phil, even though the latter had realised that Dan was too tired to listen to him and had stopped talking a while ago.

He hardly even noticed the nurses rolling his bed out of the safety of his own hospital room and into the unknown halls of the quiet hospital. The rattling of the wheels of the bed drowned out all the other sounds coming out of the hospital rooms they passed. He could be rolling past crying people, dying people, people saying their last goodbyes, and he wouldn’t notice. He’d just go past their rooms like nothing was going on and he would never know that he’d be only a few feet away from a dying person.  
He hoped the pushy thoughts would leave him alone after the surgery and he wished he’d listened to the words Phil had said to him before he’d seen his form become smaller and smaller until he couldn’t see his best friend anymore. He hoped Phil would remember what he’d said when Dan came back because he wanted to know what he had said to him. But he’d probably have forgotten about the fact that he wanted that by the time he woke up from his surgery.

A cap was placed over his face and it was then that he realised that the bed had stopped rolling and they’d stopped in a operation room.  
“Just keep breathing, you’ll just fall asleep, it’s okay. Go to sleep.” A nurse stood by his bed assured him. Dan stared at her in a way he’d have known was creepy if only that stupid cloud wasn’t taking control of his mind and if only his eyes didn’t want to close with a force of a thousand horses. He tried to resist, didn’t understand why it was happening. He lost the fight with his eyes, but his mind continued to fight the cloud for another few seconds before his hearing cut out and he sank into a strange dream.

Phil was dancing with the nurse who’d brought him up to his room the day before. A song which he knew was Muse’s but couldn’t quite place was blasting from speakers that were nowhere to be found and he floated over their heads as a cloud. Everything was white. He couldn’t make out where the floor stopped and the wall began. Couldn’t see if there was even a wall at all. There was no depth in anything, the air was the floor and the floor was the air. Everywhere he looked, the too bright hospital white stared back at him. The two Elikae came out of nowhere. Majestic white wings on their backs and shiny halo’s above their heads. But they both had a devil’s tail and a trident with which they started poking at Phil and the nurse. Dan tried to stop them, tried to get them away from the two dancing people, but the fact that he was a cloud kept him from being able to help. He screamed that they had to watch out, that they had to run, but they didn’t hear him. Upon leaving his mouth his words mixed with the intense whiteness of the room and their echo disappeared into the Muse song. He couldn’t hear himself yell. The white got more and more intense until he had difficulty making out the humans among the white filling up his eyes and taking control of his mind and thoughts. It was as if someone had reached into his head and taken out every sense of self control as he started to float away from the scene. He heard Phil say his name and tried to call back, tell him to get to safety, but he couldn’t get his mouth to work.

His eyes shot open and for a split second he was afraid that he was still stuck in his nightmare, but then he realised that it was just the white of his hospital and that Phil was sitting next to him, looking very concerned.  
“Are you okay?” He heard Phil ask him. Dan couldn’t make out his face, but he recognised the vague form beside his bed anyway. He tried to open his mouth but he couldn’t. Tried moving his arm but it staid right where it was. His fingers were the only thing responding to his brain’s signals to move. He relaxed when he realised that at least he could still feel his body.  
He heard himself sigh and quickly tried if he had regained the ability to speak; he had. “Yes. Phil. God.”  
Phil raised his eyebrows at him and put a hand on his forehead, “Do you want some morphine?” His other hand was already on the red button above his head, ready to press it in case Dan said ‘yes’.  
Dan nodded, he couldn’t remember what morphine was for as his mind was too busy putting the memories which had been taken out of his head back in, but he was sure they wouldn’t give it to him if it’d kill him.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see a nurse walk in and fiddle with the IV he was hooked to before giving him a friendly smile and leaving the room. “Did they give me-..?” Dan asked, not capable of finishing his sentence.  
“Yeah,” Phil said, “It’ll stop the pain.”  
Dan wasn’t even sure if he was in pain, he just knew that he wanted to get away from the endless white and see some colour; any colour would do, really. His body started to feel numb as he could feel the fluid run into his bloodstream and spread through his body.  
“White.” He managed to choke out.  
“What?”  
“White.”  
But Phil didn’t understand and Dan got frustrated. Did he not see the same amount of infinite white cover the room? He raised his arm from the bed and pointed at nothing in particular. Everything was white, what did it matter where he pointed at?  
“Yeah, that’s a white wall indeed.” Phil nodded uncomfortably.  
“Can I sleep?”  
Phil seemed caught of guard by the sudden change of subject but he nodded, “Yeah, sure. Yeah. Go to sleep.”  
“Thank you.” Dan said, eyes slipping close and arm dropping back onto the mattress.


	11. Chapter 11

The next few days went by in a haze. Dan hardly remembered anything beside asking for more morphine and listening to Phil speak whilst nodding thoughtfully even though he didn’t actually understand what was being said to him.  
Phil had managed to assure his parents that there was no need for them to come over all the way from Wokingham and that Dan was doing fine. Sometimes when Dan woke up from his seemingly permanent slumber he could hear Phil speak to them on the phone and with Phil’s responses he could make up what was being said on the other side of the phone for a few minutes before falling back asleep.  
After the last time he was given morphine he started sobering up. Every hour he noticed that his attention span got longer and he could stay awake for more than five minutes now. The meaning of Phil’s words started to slowly come through to him and after a while he could even form a proper response.  


A nurse came to inform him that Phil was going to be taking him home in a few minutes and he got handed his own clothes. Phil had to help him out of bed; he wasn’t steady enough to stand on his own feet, let alone dress himself. So one of Dan’s nightmares came true before he’d even reached the age where he could truly call himself an elderly person: he needed help getting dressed.  
He refused to have the nurse help him, even though she insisted after she realised that Dan would fall over if he even tried to take off his hospital gown. So Phil closed the curtains around Dan’s bed and helped him get dressed himself. Having a friend help him was somehow less horrible than having a nurse help him. If he needed a nurse to help him do something as simple as getting dressed, he’d feel like he’d ended up in a retirement home and he certainly didn’t want that. Well, maybe later, when he truly was an elderly man yelling at little kids to get off his darn lawn, but not now. Not yet.  
Phil didn’t act like he was trying to help a child get dressed and that relieved Dan. He just helped him like it was the most ordinary thing he could possibly be doing as he helped Dan to pull his T-shirt over his head.

“You know,” He started, “When we get home we should have a Buffy marathon. Now that would be great. We haven’t watched Buffy in forever.”  
“Haven’t you watched it whilst I was here?”  
“I’ve hardly been at home.” Phil replied.  
“Then where have you been?”  
The older boy laughed, “Are you joking right now? Are you still high on morphine? I’ve been here, Dan. I’ve stayed with you all this time.”  
Dan didn’t really know why he’d asked it in the first place. He knew where Phil had been. Had seen him every time he opened his eyes and had heard his voice every time the people in his dreams stopped speaking. Of course he knew Phil had been with him. He just hadn’t remembered it when he’d asked it. He hoped the effects of the morphine would run out soon, they were starting to get on his nerves and he couldn’t wait to have a proper conversation with someone again.

Dan felt like he was Phil’s son when they walked out of the hospital together. Phil had one hand on his shoulder, keeping him steady, and was holding a bag full of boxes with pills Dan was supposed to take in his other.  
Dan was going to have to spend about a week ‘relaxing’, as the doctor had put it, and in his mind that meant playing videogames and watching TV whilst eating pizza with Phil. And he honestly couldn’t think of a better way to spend the following week.  
So he didn’t.  
He actually spent the entire week doing absolutely nothing productive whilst eating a lot and joking around with Phil.  
The only thing reminding him of why he had a week off in the first place was those damn pills he had to take for nearly 70% of the time. He’d always had great difficulty swallowing pills. He just couldn’t do it. So Phil had gone out and bought him multiple boxes of biscuits to help him take his pills. He liked biscuits, but now as soon as Phil got out the box he groaned dramatically, knowing he had to take yet another pill and had to eat yet another biscuit. He himself had no idea when exactly he was supposed to take each pill; but Phil seemed to know exactly when to take which one. Or he just pretended to whilst he secretly poisoned him. You could never know for sure.

The days rolled by peacefully and Dan’s first lecture after surgery was coming closer and closer until he found himself standing in the big hall where the lecture would take place, with his backpack on his back and a cup of coffee in his hand.  
It was freezing outside. Well, it probably wasn’t freezing according to meteorologists but according to Dan it damn well was. He wore gloves on his way to university and warmed his hands with the cup of hot coffee whilst looking for a place to sit.  
He’d completely forgotten to text Percy about what happened. But in his defense, they hadn’t been friends for very long when Dan had left for almost two weeks. Nonetheless he took it upon himself to go look for his new friend after the lecture. His eyes scanned the field outside where he’d first met Percy over a month ago from a safe distance behind the window inside the heated building. The yard was mostly empty apart from a bunch of freshmen hanging on the bench beside the one where he’d first met Percy. He took his phone out and hesitated before quickly typing out a message to him.  
Composing message to: Percy  
Hey percy im back at uni. Had surgery and spent some time recovering and stuff but im good again. Where are u?

Phil was coming to pick him up in half an hour, he realised upon checking the time on the big clock on the wall of the lobby. The older boy had insisted on coming to collect him as he wanted to make sure he’d get home safe. Though Dan was pretty sure he could get himself home, he liked that Phil cared about his wellbeing enough to want to involve himself in it anyway.  
Percy texted back after a few minutes of waiting; he was at the vending machines in an other hall. As Dan walked through the crowded halls he made plans as to how he was going to spend the rest of the day. He’d enjoyed spending the week doing nothing whilst eating a lot, but his two weeks off had resulted in him missing a lot of university work that he was going to have to do too.  
Percy was sat on a bench beside a vending machine, some kids who Dan assumed were his friends were sitting with him and they were all staring at their phones intensely. Dan almost felt like he was bothering Percy by calling his name and giving him a smile when he looked up.

“Hey Dan, how have you been?” Percy shoved his phone in his pocket and patted the space next to him. Dan sat down and nodded, “I’ve been okay, to be honest.”  
“Guys, this is Dan.” Percy introduced him. The other three looked up and gave him a quick smile whilst mumbling a greeting before going back to whatever they were doing on their phones. The small guy with fluffy black hair was named Trevor, Percy told him. And the tall one with the arm full of tattoos and blonde hair was called Bryce and the girl with the bright pink hair and a nose ring was called Chloe.  
They were an intimidating bunch, Dan had to admit. If it wasn’t for him being into the alternative sort of style –he himself sported black studs in his ears and he wore mostly black-, he’d probably have tried to stay away from the group for a bit. But in that moment he honestly didn’t really care with whom he was sitting, at least he was sitting with someone. During the time he’d been staying home and in the hospital the freshmen had formed their groups and Dan would probably be too late to fit himself into one.

“Chloe, where’s Jade?” Bryce suddenly asked, “I haven’t seen her in days.”  
Chloe shrugged, “Her brother is over from Germany. She wants to spend time with him before he goes back.”  
“So she isn’t coming in today?”  
“Probably not. Now that we’re on that topic anyway, where’s Alicia?”  
“She’s doing some group project with this kid whom I hate.”  
“You hate him because he’s working on a group project with your girlfriend, I assume?”  
“Damn straight. He better keep his hands off her, I’ll kill him if he makes a move.”  
“Does he know she’s taken?”  
“I hope so for his sake.”  
“Who’s Jade?” Dan asked, using the silence that had fallen to get an insider update on his apparent new group of friends.  
“Chloe’s girlfriend.” Bryce replied.  
“Your… Girlfriend?”  
Chloe raised her eyebrows at him, “I’m a lesbian, is that a problem?” She asked aggressively.  
Dan held his hands up in defense, “No, not at all. That wasn’t what I was saying. That’s- I mean, that’s great. I- yeah.”  
“Good, because I can’t stand homophobes.” Chloe grinned at him, “You’re okay, Dan.”  
Dan nodded slowly. He wasn’t sure what to think of Chloe. Sure, she was obviously very passionate about gay rights, but she seemed like a generally relaxed person overall.  
“When’s your next lecture starting?” Trevor asked him.  
“I don’t have any more lectures today.”  
“Then why don’t you go home?”  
Dan fiddled with his fingers for a bit. Trevor had sounded like he didn’t want him there with them. “I er- my mate is coming to pick me up.” Dan said quickly.  
“You don’t have a license?”  
“Neither a license or a car. I take the train.”  
“Why is your friend coming to pick you up then? Can’t you get on a train by yourself?”  
Dan got more nervous with the second.  
“I’ve just had surgery. He wants to make sure I make it home okay.”  
“Your friend?”

Dan relaxed a bit and grinned, “Yeah, my friend. Nothing more. Just a friend.”  
“That’s what they all say.” Chloe punched his arm playfully.  
“So when’s that friend of yours coming?” Percy asked, “Is it Phil? That’s what his name was right, the guy who called you on your first day and then never stopped texting you ever?”  
Dan laughed, “I swear, it’s all platonic. He’s coming in like 15 minutes.”  
“Sounds like someone I need to have a chat to.” Chloe joked, “You’re a cute guy, he’s missing out.”  
“Neither of us are gay.” Dan replied, blushing from her comment.  
Chloe shrugged at him, “That doesn’t say anything, trust me. Jade, my girlfriend, she always thought she was straight. She only realised she was bi when she met me. She’s Chloe-sexual.”

Dan started laughing and he didn’t exactly know why, her joke wasn’t even that funny. It was more the fact that his new group of people were the outcasts and he was currently sitting with some badass guys who were both playing a game involving a cute cartoon cat catching food in its mouth –Dan had gotten curious and looked over to their screens after they’d said something with their eyes still glued to their screen for the billionth time- and a lesbian girl who was telling him about how her girlfriend was bisexual and how he could totally date Phil.  
This was what his life was becoming and he didn’t mind it one bit.

Dan completely forgot about the time. He spent 20 minutes chatting to Percy’s friends before remembering that Phil was coming to pick him up. And he only realised that when Phil walked into the lobby and looked around like a lost puppy.  
Dan introduced the others to him and Phil immediately got into a conversation with Bryce and Trevor about the cute cat game. Typical Phil behaviour, Dan thought, Phil easily made light conversation with anyone and frankly, Dan was a bit jealous of Phil’s ability to keep a conversation going.  
Dan was just starting to think that he was going to have to set up camp right here in the cafetaria and that he was never going to get to leave again when Percy finally informed the group that their next lecture was starting in a few minutes and that they had to get to their classroom. Dan was relieved. He’d finally get to go home and maybe play some videogames. He’d gotten hungry and he wouldn’t mind some fastfood.

“How was your lecture?” Phil asked as they walked out of the building. Dan had to admit that he admired Phil’s social stamina. He himself wouldn’t have felt like initiating more conversation after just having talked to people he wasn’t completely comfortable with for like an hour. He could spend hours mindlessly talking to Phil, but that was because he didn’t have to think about what he was saying, he wasn’t trying to impress Phil and he didn’t have to make sure that every word coming out of his mouth was the right one. With strangers he did. He had to make sure that they thought he was intelligent and witty and he couldn’t afford to say something dumb, so he had to keep his mind focused on the conversation he was having. And doing that for an hour was absolutely exhausting, he’d experienced it many times. He’d experienced it with Percy at first and that morning with Percy’s friends.

He wasn’t uncomfortable with Percy anymore, sure, he wasn’t as comfortable with him as he was with certain other people, but he didn’t feel like just abandoning the conversation and running away after talking for a while, which was a thing he often felt like doing.  
Speaking to strangers somehow just tired him and he didn’t know why. He didn’t want it to; how easy would it be to just be able to speak to someone and keep the conversation flowing and having the perfect words just come to him? But unfortunately that isn’t how life works. He had poor social skills and that was just something he was going to have to learn how to live with. Running away from strangers would not leave a good impression, so he had to force himself to keep an uncomfortable conversation which he actually didn’t want to continue going. He had to work on that, if he wanted to become a lawyer, he knew that for sure.

What he didn’t know for sure was if he wanted to become a lawyer at all. He wasn’t really sure what he wanted to do but he did know that he wasn’t planning on spending the rest of his life in court.  
“Dan, are you listening to me?”  
Dan looked up, being shaken from his thoughts. “Yes, no. I wasn’t. I’m sorry.”  
“I asked if you had fun at your lecture. You just zoned out, what the hell happened?”  
“I don’t know. Just thinking about stuff, I guess. Lecture was okay.”  
“You are so excited about Law for someone who’s going to become a lawyer.” Phil laughed.  
But the sentence sounded a lot more serious in Dan’s head. He wasn’t excited about Law at all. Phil was spot on about that. So he just shrugged and pretended it wasn’t what had been running through his mind all day.


	12. Chapter 12

Dan spent Phil’s entire birthday with him.  
He welcomed the guests into Phil’s apartment, made sure they all got something to drink whilst Phil kept them entertained by listening to their constant chatter and receiving presents. Upon being asked to help Phil host his party Dan had known that it was going to be a long and tiring day, but he had said ‘yes’ anyway. He’d woken himself up from the permanent down spiral he seemed to have gotten stuck in lately and forced a smile every time he opened the door to let a new guest in.  
Dan had been in a state of sadness for the past few months. Even Christmas or New Year’s hadn’t cheered him up. If he was honest with himself, he’d say that he hated where he was in life, absolutely didn’t want to study Law, and kind of just wanted to make YouTube videos forever. He wanted to talk to Phil about it, he really did, but he was afraid that Phil would just say that he had to bite his tongue and just work his way through university for a few more years. He’d never wanted to study Law in the first place, he’d kind of just gone for something that would sound clever and would get him a good job and lots of money. No one had ever told him that to get through an education and spend the rest of your life doing something, you really had to like that thing. And he just didn’t like Law at all. He liked crime series, of course, but studying the laws and constitution himself were in no way appealing to him.

“I think we’re set.” Phil announced, placing a hand on Dan’s shoulder.  
“That’s everyone you know?”  
Phil laughed, “This is my family, yes. Have you introduced yourself to everyone?”  
“I think so.”

Dan couldn’t wait for the time to pass; Phil had promised him that they would go to the movies as soon as everyone had left. And they were staying over for dinner, so that would be in forever.  
He spent the day giving everyone friendly smiles, responding to everyone asking him questions and mostly trying to hide out in one of the empty rooms. He knew the guests would think that he was rude by hiding out, but he still spent most of the afternoon in Phil’s room, reading a book he found on his friend’s nightstand. He didn’t really care what it was about, as long as he had something to keep himself busy he was content.

At around four the door of the room opened, Dan looked up, expecting to find the questioning look of one of the guests looking at him, mouth open to tell him off. But instead of an annoyed guest, he got Phil. The older boy sneaked in and closed the door behind him, “You’ve stayed with everyone for like two hours.” He stated.  
“I’m sorry.” Dan said softly.  
“No, that’s not what I mean. I understand that spending multiple hours in a crowded room with only people you don’t know isn’t your idea of a perfect afternoon. But you stayed for two hours anyway. I’m impressed.”  
Dan chuckled, “It’s just people. I can handle people.”  
“Yeah, but the flat is just filled with people you don’t know. Strangers are a whole other species than friends.”  
“I am a very brave person.” Dan grinned, “Sorry for leaving though. It was just really busy and everyone was just trying to speak to me and I didn’t want to talk to anyone anymore and I’m sorry for going into your room without asking I-…”  
“Dan, Dan. It’s fine. Really. It’s fine, calm down.” Phil sat down next to him, “You can stay here till dinner, if you want. Do you want to come have dinner with us later though?”  
“Yeah, sure.”

“Shall I get you a laptop or something? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’re reading the manual to my Mac.”  
Dan blinked a few times and nodded, his eyes had been scanning the words on the pages, but he didn’t remember actually reading anything.  
“Be right back.” Phil said. He got up and walked out of the room, only to return a minute later with a laptop in his hands which he put on Dan’s lap, “Enjoy. I’m going to go back to the guests. I’ll call you for dinner. Feel free to come join us later on though, don’t feel like you have to stay here now.” He smiled and left. During the short few seconds that the door was opened Dan could hear the chatter and laughter of the guests and he was absolutely sure that he wasn’t going to go back outside before dinner.

 

The theatre was filled with excited young people. Dan and Phil had booked tickets in advance, knowing it’d be almost impossible to buy tickets on the spot. When Inception had just come out everyone had gone. The theatres had been packed every night, and Dan and Phil hadn’t gotten a chance to go.  
It was a great move to start showing the movie again, Dan thought as he sat down in his chair. Phil put his coat on the floor in front of their seats and sat down next to him. “You’d think everyone had gone to see it by now already.” He stated.  
“We hadn’t either.” Dan replied. “As long as no one starts messing around in the middle of my film I don’t mind the fact that the room is absolutely crammed full of people.”  
Phil chuckled, “Don’t you dare shush anyone.”  
“I will shush whoever I want to shush.”  
“Oh my God, please not when I’m next to you.”  
“Just pretend you don’t know me whilst I shush people.”  
“I’ll kick you out of my flat permanently if you shush anyone, I’m not playing around.”  
“I’ll just go back to my own dorm then.”  
“Do you even know where your dorm is? When was the last time you went around there?”  
“Of course I remember where it is. I went there like…” He paused for a second, trying to remember when exactly the last time had been, “Three weeks ago.” He concluded.  
“You’re at my house more than I am.”  
Dan opened his mouth to argue, but closed it again when he realised that what Phil said was completely true. “Okay, maybe I am.” He admitted, “But I do still remember where my own dorm is. I just don’t like it there. It’s too empty.”  
The lights started to dim and Phil quickly reached for the popcorn he’d carefully placed between his feet. “Want some?” He asked some as he held the container out for Dan.  
“Love some.” Dan replied. His hands felt around in the dark until he found the container and he grabbed a handful of popcorn.  
He looked up just in time to see the commercials start playing.

 

“I got tickets!” Phil bursted into the living room where Dan was spread out on the couch, playing videogames.  
“Congrats.” Dan replied, eyes still trained on the screen.  
“I got tickets.” Phil repeated. He waved a two pieces of paper around in front of Dan’s face and Dan moved his head a bit so that he could continue playing the game on the screen.  
“You got tickets for what?” He asked.  
“The Jeremy Kyle show! We’re going to the Jeremy Kyle show!”  
Dan finally looked up from his game, “Are you serious right now?”

And apparently he was, as March 3rd found them sitting in the audience of the show. Dan observed the director shouting instructions at the cameramen and Jeremy Kyle walked around the set for a bit. Dan and Phil had been excited about this ever since Phil got the tickets and they’d hardly stopped talking about it. It had kind of overshadowed Dan’s existential crisis and he suspected Phil of buying the tickets just to cheer him up. And for some reason he didn’t mind at all. It felt like there was his permanent state of mind and his temporary state of mind. Before the tickets the permanent state had been ‘down’ and the temporary state had been as well. After getting the tickets the temporary state had switched to ‘excited and happy’ quite often and it renewed Dan’s energy. His permanent state of mind hadn’t changed though, he could still fall back into his vortex of unfulfilled dreams and empty wishes at any given moment. But at least he had something to look forward to again.  
He hadn’t been able to keep his doubts a secret from Phil for very long. Phil could read him like a book and had quickly called him out on his ‘I’m fine’ and other dumb excuses. And Dan had told him. Had told him every thought that had gone through his mind in the past month. Had told him about his doubts and his fears and had told him that he wanted to just quit university and do something else. And instead of carefully telling him that that would probably not be a good idea, as Dan had expected him to, Phil had told him that if that was really what he wanted he had to think about it very carefully and maybe just follow his heart. Together they’d decided that Dan was going to at least finish this year and then reflect back on the year and his time at university so that he could consider it carefully and decide if quitting university was really what he wanted and what would be best for him.

Phil had made him promise to come to him with his doubts and tell him when he felt down. And so far he’d done that every time and Phil had always cheered him up somehow. They’d played videogames, watched TV, cooked or baked together and even played board games. As long as Dan got distracted and was having fun it was fine.  
Dan got more depressed with every lecture though, and it took Phil more and more effort to cheer him up each time. But they were still going and as long as Phil was there waiting for him when he got to his flat Dan was going to keep this up.

He hardly spent any time in his own dorm anymore, it had become like the months in between high school and university, where he’d basically just lived with his best friend and had had the time of his life.  
The money the tickets had cost Phil had certainly been worth it; the two boys had enjoyed themselves greatly and after the show they went to Nando’s and had dinner there before going back home.  
“How are you feeling?” Phil asked as they walked back to Phil’s flat through the dark streets of Manchester.  
“Great. How are you?”  
Phil laughed, “I’m fine. What did you think of the show?”  
“I loved it. But now I’m tired.”  
Phil smiled at him, “Me too. What time is your lecture tomorrow?”  
“Eleven.” Dan replied.  
“Did you do your coursework?”  
“Er-…”  
“Yeah, I thought so already. You should really try to study more.”  
Dan sighed, “I don’t want to stay at university. I don’t even need to wait till the end of the year to know that. I know I want to stop. I’m just not sure if I can survive on YouTube alone.”  
Phil nodded thoughtfully but didn’t reply.

“Where the hell have you been?”  
Dan had gone to his own dorm for the first time in two weeks and the first thing he saw when he’d opened the door was Evzynn sitting on the bed.  
“Up.” Evzynn replied, “You and Phil have laid low. Good job. But you want to drop out of university?”  
Dan nodded, “I don’t want to do it anymore. I don’t. But Phil and me have made a deal that I’m going to stay till the end of the year and then I will decide if I want to stay or not. Or there’s always the option of taking a year out and going back after that.”  
“That won’t be any good to the trust you’re building with them upstairs.”  
“To be honest, I don’t really care. But I’m going to try to stay, alright?”  
“I guess. But why don’t you want to study Law? It’s a great study.”  
“Yeah, if I wanted to be a lawyer it would be. But I don’t want to be a lawyer. I want to be a Youtuber and play videogames with Phil. Speaking of Phil, where’s Erazniel?”  
“With Phil.”  
“Don’t make him do anything, please. Has he made him do anything in the past few months?”  
“No. He’s been upstairs with me and we didn’t feel like either of you needed any guidance. Can’t you just let me change your mind on the university thing?”  
“No.” Dan said firmly, “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life doing something I do not want to do.”  
“But if I just Plot Twist you, you will want to.”  
“Okay first of all, you want to do what to me?”  
“Plot Twist. It’s what we call it to change our human’s mind.”  
“Okay, of course you do. But let’s be real here; if you change my mind on this matter, it won’t be my choice. And it might be shitty right now, but I really don’t want you to influence my choices anymore. Even though it would be easier to let you right now.”  
“You need to stay at university, Daniel, they’ll think you’re up to something.”  
Dan rolled his eyes, “Let them think that, I don’t care. I’m not going to kill anyone. I’m going to do with my life what I want to do with my life, even though I’m not quite sure what it is that I want to do. No, I’m going to stay till the end of the year and then I’ll make my decision, which will probably be taking a year out. I don’t think I will change my mind in the coming three months. I’m sorry Evzynn, I’ve made my decision and I’m not going to change it.”  
“If that’s what you want. Don’t come running to me when you’ve got a creepy guy on your ass, trying to kill you.”  
Dan grinned at him, “I won’t.”

Exams were coming up. Dan knew he had to study but he kept postponing having to do anything. He kept waiting till the night before to do the work and every day he came home and told Phil that it ‘didn’t go as well as it could have gone’, and every day he repeated his rhythm of waiting till eleven pm to get his books out of his bag.

When he got back to Phil’s flat after his last exam he knew he’d failed at least one. He knew it for sure. He was going to have to take a resit in order to be allowed to become a sophomore at a course he didn’t want to be taking.  
Phil wasn’t home, but Dan had a key. A note on the table told him that Phil was at Tesco and would be home shortly, so Dan put on the kettle to make sure that there would be a warm cup of tea for the older boy when he returned.  
“Daniel, I’ve got an idea and you are going to like it.” Evzynn’s voice didn’t scare him. The sudden hand on his shoulder, however, scared the life out of him.  
“Jesus Christ,” Dan grumbled, “Was that really necessary?”  
“Yeah, that’s what you’re saying right now. You’ll know it was necessary when you hear my offer.”  
“Okay, shoot.”  
“You, Phil, a flat in Manchester together. How does that sound?”  
Dan raised his eyebrows, “You want me and Phil to move in together?”  
“Yep. Erazniel checked, Phil wants to too. He didn’t even have to Plot Twist him, he just had to make Phil put some action behind that thought. So you’re up for it?”  
“Of course I am. Me and him are just getting a flat together? That’s it? No hidden reasons?”  
“Well, the two of you living together would mean that you would never go back to your dorm, so you’d be together all the time. Meaning me and Erazniel don’t both have to be there. We can just take turns being your babysitters. Also, the upstairs like the idea of you quitting university because it would mean that you would leave the house less often.”  
“They still think I’m going to go serial killer?”  
“Sort of. They don’t know what you’re going to do, that’s why they’re scared.”  
“The same government is still running?”  
“Yeah, but we’re expecting it to fall at any given moment.”  
“Who are ‘we’?”  
“All the Elikae. We know they’re not going to last much longer. But we have to realise that a new government means new people with new opinions who might think about your situation differently.”  
“You Elikae need to sort yourselves out.”  
“Says the human.”  
“Valid point.”

A few weeks later Dan slowly opened the door to Phil’s flat, stepped inside and closed it again. His back against the door he slowly sank down onto the floor and pulled his knees to his chest. A resit. He knew he was going to have to take a resit, but now that he knew the actual results of his exams he regretted his every move of that year. He didn’t understand why it made him so upset; he wanted to quit university anyway. Maybe it was the thought that it wasn’t just his choice to quit, that he also just wasn’t intelligent enough to finish a university education.  
Phil walked into the small hallway and without saying anything he sat down next to Dan and put an arm around him. They sat in silence for a few minutes and Dan knew that Phil was waiting for him to speak up. “Resits are in August.” He choked out. He didn’t dare to say more, because he knew he would start crying. It wasn’t like Phil hadn’t seen him cry before during his breakdowns in the past year, but he still tried to hold the tears back.

“How many?” Phil asked.  
“One. Just one.” And then he started crying anyway. And Phil didn’t say anything but just sat there and tightened his arm around him. Without looking up he knew the older boy was looking at him with this sad expression on his face. With every single one of his other breakdowns Phil had held him and told him it was going to be okay, had comforted him and let Dan cry into his shoulder, and back then that was the perfect approach. But now keeping quiet was the best approach and Dan didn’t know how Phil knew what to do when he himself didn’t even know what the best way to comfort himself would be.  
“Just one. If I’d actually studied I could have done it. I could’ve passed the year. I should’ve studied. I’m such an idiot.”  
“Beating yourself up over it won’t fix anything, Dan.” Phil said softly and Dan nodded slowly. He felt like he was going to throw up, but held back because he didn’t want to get away from Phil’s comfortable embrace.

“I know,” He said, “It’s not like I wanted to stay anyway, it’s just the thought that I literally am not capable of going to university. I’m not intelligent enough. Everyone can do it, but not me.”  
“That’s rubbish.” Phil simply said. And Dan knew he was right.  
When Evzynn showed up and motioned for him to come into the bathroom Dan ignored him. He put his head down on his knees and tried to get his breathing under control.  
“Daniel, bathroom. Now, please.” Evzynn ordered. But Dan didn’t reply and stayed right where he was.  
“Daniel, damn it, the government has fallen.”

Dan finally lifted his head up, opened his mouth to say something and realised that Phil was in the room just in time and closed his mouth again. For some reason he’d never felt this far away from the Elikae world and he hadn’t cared this little about them since he’d heard about their existence. His world was crumbling apart and he had to at least fix his own world before worrying about an other world.  
“Daniel, there is a new government already. They want you to stay at university.”  
Dan’s head snapped up, “What?” He exclaimed. He immediately regretted it when he realised what he’d done.

“Are you okay?” Phil asked with a concerned voice.  
“No.” Dan replied. With a feeling of regret he pushed Phil’s arm away and got up. “I’ll be right back.” He informed his friend as he stumbled to the bathroom. He locked the door behind himself and turned to face Evzynn. “I can’t stay. I can’t stay. Don’t make me stay.”  
“Try, Daniel. Please, for me? They will kill me if I don’t make you stay. The normal government fell because they couldn’t handle the stress, the new government was chosen because they don’t care about stress and will just do anything the have to to keep the community safe.”  
“If you die, I won’t be able to communicate with anyone but Erazniel, right? How would that help them?”  
“It wouldn’t.” Evzynn admitted, “But we’re not sure how it would work, to be honest. Maybe natural selection would choose a new Elik for you, a humanless one, but it’s also very much possible that you would stay Elikless for the rest of your life. Daniel, I’m afraid they’ll kill you if I’m not around. Please try to go back to university, it’s what’s best for the both of us.”  
“I’ll take the resit. If I fail, I’m taking a year out and you can’t stop me. I’m sorry, but nothing has ever made me as unhappy as university is making me.”  
Evzynn sighed, “You don’t see the big picture here, do you? You only see yourself and your own life.”  
“Yes, because my life is the only one I’m in charge of and I don’t owe my life to anyone but my mum.”  
“Then do this for your mum.”  
“Stop. My mum agrees with me.”  
“Yes, but your mother doesn’t know what you know.”  
“I’m leaving.” Dan said. He pushed past Evzynn and left the bathroom.


	13. Chapter 13

“What it is even in this one? Your brick collection? The fattest man on earth?”  
“I don’t freaking know. Just put it like over there or something. Also, I’m pretty sure that is one of your boxes. So do you, by any means, have a brick collection?”  
“If I did, I would regret that now. Open letter to all brick collectors advising them to never move ever.” Phil put the box on top of the stack of boxes already in the corner of their new living room.  
“Why do we own so much stuff?” Dan complained as he moved another box from the hallway into the living room.

They’d gotten movers to bring all their boxes upstairs, but they’d decided that they wanted to unpack them themselves. The furniture was already in place, but the accessories, countless DVDs and videogames, posters, plates and cutlery, and everything else that didn’t require at least two men to bring into the flat was still packed in the boxes lying around throughout the flat.  
They spent the entire day unpacking and complaining to each other before they ordered pizza and gave up for the day to settle in front of the TV and watch some mindless TV show. They were tired and their arms hurt, but they had to admit that their hard work had paid off. The flat looked a lot nicer than it did that morning whilst the movers where walking around carrying furniture in.  
For a day, Dan hadn’t thought about his resit; his mind occupied by thoughts of moving, furniture and decorating. The painting had been done before they moved in, but they’d moved in on the day the furniture had been brought in; today. The beds were in place, so technically there was nothing keeping them from just moving in already, so they’d done just that. Now that Dan was settled on the couch with a pizza box on his lap, keeping his legs warm, the thoughts of his upcoming resit were coming back to him. Not long now.

He knew for a fact that he didn’t want to pass the resit anyway, he didn’t want to stay at university at all, but he also didn’t want to disappoint himself by proving that he wasn’t capable of passing this year of university. He knew he had to start studying, but his usual lack of motivation combined with the fact that he wasn’t actually planning on passing the exam lead to an amount of motivation below zero.  
So he let the days pass, without doing anything to stop himself from surviving another day without having studied. And the day of the resit came closer and closer mercilessly.  
Of course he left it to the night before. It was almost too typical. He was sat on the couch with a cup of tea, folders in his hands and plans to cram all the information into his brain last minute.  
But he couldn’t do it.

Instead of soaking up the information, his brain started to make up reasons why he didn’t have to do this. Reasons why he didn’t have to stay at university and ways to make his life work out without an education. He could do it; live off YouTube. Him and Phil weren’t tight on money at all; made apparent by the fact that they’d just bought an expensive flat in central London. He kept getting distracted by everything and nothing and really all he wanted was to just say ‘fuck it’ and join Phil in his videogame. Could he do that? Could he just not go to his resit and take a year out of university? Could he just decide that for himself right now instead of having to wait till he got the results of his resit back? He could just do it. He could quit. Evzynn would probably be angry with him, but he would be just as angry if he tried and failed. He might as well just not try at all and save himself a lot of misery.

“I’m not going.” He decided out loud.  
“You’re not going where?” Phil asked.  
“My resit. I’m not going.”  
“You have to go to your resit.”  
“Not if I don’t fucking care anymore! I don’t want to be a lawyer, Phil.” He knew he was breaking down and he didn’t do anything to stop it. He dropped the folders he was holding and jumped up, “I don’t want to be a lawyer.” He repeated, “I want to do YouTube. I’ve never wanted to be a lawyer.”

The next thing he knew he was sitting on the couch and Phil was next to him with his arms around him, whispering comforting words.  
He could just take a year out. He might not even go back, but for now he could just take a year out and see it out. Who knows what could happen in a year? Maybe his YouTube channel would take off. He could stop university and live off YouTube. He could at least try.  
“Should I take a year out?” He asked. The question had been on his lips, waiting to be spit out for months now. He just wanted to know Phil’s honest opinion. He didn’t want ‘follow your heart’ or ‘it’s your life’, he just wanted to know what Phil thought of the whole thing.  
Phil nodded, “Yes.” He said. Just that. Just ‘yes’.  
“Really?”  
“This whole university thing is making you super unhappy and I hate seeing you like this. Take a year out, you can always go back after that year if you change your mind. You’ve got nothing to lose.”  
Dan curled into Phil’s warm body and sighed, “Thank you for putting up with me.”  
“That’s what friends are for.”  
“What will my parents think?”  
“They’ll see it coming. They knew you’d probably quit, you’re just confirming it a bit earlier than they had expected. They’ll be okay with it, I promise. Do you want to call them?”  
“Should I?”  
“You probably should. But you can wait till you’ve calmed down a bit to do so though, it’s okay.”  
Dan smiled weakly, “I’ll probably start crying again anyway when I hear their voices, so it doesn’t really matter now, does it?”

“Fair enough.” Phil reached out for their home phone and handed it to Dan, who took a deep breath and typed in their phone number. His finger hovered over the call button for a few seconds before he pressed it and put the phone to his ear. Phil’s grip on his tightened and he listened to Phil’s whispered encouraging words to calm himself down.  
“Howell.”  
“Dad?”  
“Hey, Dan. How are you?”  
“I’m alright.”  
“Are you crying?”  
“Yes.”  
“What’s going on? What happened? Are you and Phil okay?”  
“Yeah, yeah. We’re fine. I’m- I-… Is mum with you?”  
“Yes, I’ll put you on speaker, okay?”  
“Yeah, okay.”  
Dan’s grip on Phil’s T-shirt tightened when he heard his mother’s voice through the phone, “Dan?”  
“Yeah, it’s me.”  
“Are you crying sweetie? What happened?”  
“Nothing. I kind of- I’ve been thinking and I-…” He was quiet for a moment and it took a squeeze in his shoulder from Phil to get him talking again, “I’m not going to my resit. I’m taking a year out.”  
“I thought you were going to do your resit and then decide whether you wanted to continue or not.” His mum said.  
“Thank God, that’s what you are crying over? I thought something bad had happened.” His dad.  
Dan smiled through his tears, “Yeah, I don’t want to go to university anymore. I really don’t. I want to try to make enough money to support myself with YouTube.”  
“You want to take a year out to see if you can make that happen?” His mum asked.  
“Yeah.” Dan said, though it was more of a request for permission than an announcement.  
“Well, it’s better to have a midlife crisis whilst your still young than when you’re too old to change your life.”  
“True.” Dan replied. But to be honest, he was just glad his parents agreed. He’d kind of stopped listening to what they were saying after he’d realised that they were okay with it.  
“Why did you suddenly decide this?” His mum asked.  
“I was trying to study and I just kind of realised that this is in no way where I’m trying to go with my life.”  
“You only have one life. You should use it to do what makes you happy.” His dad agreed.

After the phone call Dan and Phil sat motionlessly on the couch for another half an hour before Phil got up to get the both of them a cup of tea and some biscuits. When he came back Dan was busy tearing his exam folders to shreds. He hadn’t noticed that Phil had walked in and Phil stood doorway and watched him for a minute, until Dan made a pile out of the pieces of paper and finally looked up to see him.  
“How long have you been standing there?”  
“Long enough. Want a biscuit?”  
“I’m sorry.”  
“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for.”  
“I’ve been bothering you with my midlife crisis for the past year and now all your comforting will have been for nothing because I’m leaving university anyway.”  
“So my comforting was not for nothing. Dan, I didn’t want you to stay at university, I wanted you to do what you wanted. And you’ve done that now. You’ve made your choice and I’m proud of you for it.” Phil put the tray down on the coffee table and handed Dan a cup before settling back onto the couch with his own cup in his hands. Dan wrapped his hands around the hot cup to warm his hands.  
“How does it feel to not be a university student anymore?” Phil asked.  
“Better than being an unhappy university student.” Dan replied. The fact that him and Evzynn were going to be endangered by the Elikae government sprung into his mind, but he quickly dismissed the thought. He hadn’t seen Evzynn or Erazniel all night and he was kind of worried about them. Although he was fairly certain that they wouldn’t both be killed because there wouldn’t be any Elikae left with the ability to speak to him.

Evzynn didn’t show up until late that night. At two am, when Dan was about to go to bed, Evzynn suddenly appeared behind him and Dan nearly had a heart attack when he saw him in the mirror. “Jesus Christ, you need to stop doing that.”  
“Your resit is in seven hours. Why are you only going to bed now?”  
“I’m not going to my resit.”  
“Come again?”  
“My resit. I’m not going. I’m taking a year out of university.”  
“You seem to have developed a habit of doing the exact opposite of what I recommend.”  
“Maybe that says more about your recommendations than about my habits.”  
“I’m serious. They’re not going to be pleased when they hear that.”  
“Tell them to shove it where the sun doesn’t shine.”  
“There is no sun up there.”  
“I wasn’t talking about being practical I was talking about not caring.”  
“You just don’t care about anything, do you?”  
“I have one life, and I’m not planning on spending it being unhappy because an other species has decided to fuck shit up.”  
“Well, that’s one way to put it.”  
“That’s the only way to put it.”  
“You’re horribly selfish.”

“No, I’m horribly rational. Do you still not understand? I don’t live for you. I don’t live for Erazniel. And I sure as hell don’t live for any of the other Elikae. I live for myself and the people I love. I’m not going to spend the rest of my life being unhappy just to make some guys from an other species whom I do not know happy.”  
“You’re good with words for a shallow little shit.” It sounded mean, but Dan could hear a hint of admiration in his tone.  
“Where’s Erazniel?”  
“With Phil.”  
“Right. Okay. Can I ask you something?”  
“Go ahead.”  
“I’ve been thinking lately, and I’ve decided that I want someone to speak to about this whole thing.”  
“You’ve got me and Erazniel.”  
“Yes, but you’re not always with me.”  
“You want to tell Phil?”  
“Can I?”  
“If you want. But do you think he’ll believe you?”  
“If I bring it the right way he probably will. But if Erazniel is there with me I can prove it to him. Like I could say ‘he’s going to put the thought that you want to do this small insignificant thing into your mind and you will want to do so’ and then Erazniel can Plot Twist him. Is it possible to Plot Twist someone into believing something?”  
“No. No motivation and no beliefs. Just actions.”  
“So I’ll have to manually convince him. Alright.”  
“Why would you want to have Erazniel Plot Twist him? I thought you were against the concept of having someone else make choices for you? Doesn’t that count for others making choices for Phil?”  
“Of course it would. But I need Phil to believe me. I’ll use whatever I can to make him believe me.”

Dan decided he’d just go for it and the next morning during breakfast, during a silence, he carefully said, “Can I tell you something? You have to promise not to laugh, because I’m deadly serious.”  
Phil raised his eyebrows, “Yeah, okay.”  
“Okay. Yeah. Okay. This is going to sound really weird, but like, there’s another species living on this planet.”  
“What are you trying to say?”  
“They’re called Elikae. Every human is coupled up with an Elik. Elikae have the power to change a human’s mind and make them do whatever they want them to. They look like humans, but no one can see them. Ever since my accident back in 2009 I can see them. I can speak to mine and yours but to no one else’s.”  
Phil was silent for about a minute and Dan didn’t dare interrupt the silence, afraid to say something wrong.  
“Why are you telling me this?” Phil asked.  
“Do you not believe me?” Dan was slightly disappointed; he’d hoped Phil would believe him on the first try.”  
“No, yeah. I believe you. Alright. But why are you telling me about this? Why now?”  
“Because the Elikae government or whatever it is is angry with me because I’ve dropped out of university. The only other person to ever be able to see them was Jack The Ripper. No wonder they’re scared of what I might turn in to.”  
“So I’m going to ignore most of the questions I’ve currently got, and just go with a highly practical one; why are you only capable of talking to mine and yours?”  
Dan blinked a few times, “I don’t know.” He said. Why could he only see Evzynn and Erazniel? “I couldn’t understand one of my other friend’s from high school. But I could understand Erazniel.”  
“Who?”  
“Era- right. Your Elik is called Erazniel, mine’s called Evzynn.”  
“The worst part is that this is not even the weirdest thing you’ve ever told me.”  
Dan laughed, “We’re both pretty messed up.” He admitted.  
“So are they here right now? Erazniel and the other one?”  
“Evzynn. Yeah, they’re here.” He turned around and pointed at the two Elikae standing behind them.” In Phil’s eyes he was just pointing at an empty space, but he could clearly see the two men standing in the middle of their living room.  
“Okay. Yes. This is actually happening. This is my life.”  
“They wanted me to stay at university and they were the reason we moved in together.”  
Phil’s face dropped, “You’re saying you initially didn’t want to move in with me but they changed your mind?”  
“No. No. Evzynn asked me if I wanted to move in with you and I said I did, and Evzynn told me that Erazniel had checked with you and you already wanted to move in with me. He didn’t even have to make you want to.”  
Phil laughed, “That’s because I’ve been thinking of living with you ever since we became friends. You seemed like the only person who would tolerate me.”  
“Are you joking?” Dan laughed along, “You’re the easiest person to live with.”  
“Yeah, that’s what you think now. Wait till we’ve been living together for a little longer, you’ll realise that I’m the worst person ever.”  
“I’ve lived with you ever since I moved to Manchester, let’s be real. I’ve hardly ever been in my dorm ever.”  
“True. Maybe we’re both just horrible people to live with but we don’t realise it because it makes us two sides to the same coin.”

“Guess who emailed me?”  
“Your mother.”  
“I hate you.”  
“Who emailed you?”  
“The BBC.”  
“Why would they email you?”  
“Not just me; us. They emailed us.”  
“Why would they email us?” Dan paused the game he was playing and turned to face his best friend.  
“They want us to do a two hour radio show on Christmas.”  
“On Christmas.” Dan repeated.  
“Yes. From ten to twelve on Christmas. All on video on the BBC website.”  
“Why would they offer us a radio show? We’d just fuck it up somehow.”  
“Come on, have a little trust in the world. Should we do it?”  
“Well, I’m up for it. I just can’t believe they come to us for something big like this.”  
“Hey, I believed you when you came with your story about Elikae. Now I can’t stop thinking that there’s this guy just constantly standing behind me and it’s freaking me out.”  
Dan grinned at Erazniel, who was indeed standing behind Phil. Evzynn was sat next to Dan on the couch; the both of them had been chatting about the current situation when Phil had walked in. The fact that Phil now knew had made everything so much easier as Dan didn’t have to go hide somewhere whenever Evzynn or Erazniel wanted to speak to him.

“He is standing behind me, isn’t he?”  
“Yep.”  
Phil turned around but of course he didn’t see anyone. Dan really wanted to somehow find a way for Phil to be able to see them too, but he figured that was impossible as that would’ve somehow happened with someone before if it was possible. If you spent your entire life with someone but they do not know you and aren’t capable of seeing you you’d probably take every chance you could to get them to see you. You’d have gotten attached to them but they wouldn’t even know you existed and for the first time Dan realised how much it must hurt to always be with someone who doesn’t know you exist and doesn’t acknowledge you. How much would you do for that person to start noticing you? It was kind of the concept of fandoms, Dan thought, except in fandoms you couldn’t come near your idol either. The worst part about being an Elik was probably that you could be with your human every second of every day and you could touch them and observe them but they could never get them to recognize their presence.  
Was Evzynn happy that Dan could see him and communicate with him? Was he attached to Dan? Or did it only bother him? Because it could just bother him; it had shaken up the Elikae community and he didn’t think Evzynn had made himself very popular by having a human who could both see them and did what he wanted himself. Evzynn had no control over him anymore. He could only Plot Twist Dan when Dan closed his eyes, but he had to be awake as well. 

@VeryMuchALlama 4m  
@Danisnotonfire have u watched the new episode of Adventure Time yet? It’s so good wow

@Danisnotonfire now  
@VeryMuchALlama No not yet, im planning on watching it very soon but me and phil are very busy so I’ve been postponing it since forever u g h

With the radio show coming closer, Dan and Phil got busier. They had to prepare so many things for the show; they visited the BBC building almost daily and they were constantly working on ideas and preparations. Instead of their usual bonding sessions over Buffy The Vampire Slayer, videogames, music and YouTube videos they now bonded over being busy with the radio show, being tired and being hungry because they’d skipped breakfast to be at the BBC building in time.  
Although it was a lot of fun, they were extremely relieved when the show had finished and they could go home. The countless days of endless preparing were now behind them and their two hours of nervous shaky voices were over as well. Proud and content they made their way back home.  
And as Dan stepped into their flat he smiled to himself. He’d gone from being just another fan behind a screen to being Phil’s best friend and even doing a radio show with him on BBC Radio 1. When did his life take such a drastic turn? It had all happened gradually and he’d hardly noticed the huge changes in his life, even though they seemed so apparent right now.

“Want hot chocolate?”  
“Yes please.”  
He complained about the Elikae a lot, but was this all thanks to them? Would he have never become friends with Phil if it hadn’t been for them Plot Twisting Phil? For some reason he couldn’t bring himself to care. It didn’t matter how it had happened, because at least it had. Him and Phil were now best friends. And seeing someone as your best friend was a belief, Dan was fairly sure of that. And Elikae couldn’t imprint beliefs on someone, only actions. Erazniel had made Phil decide to react to Dan’s desperate fangirl actions, but Phil himself had decided to befriend him. At first glance you’d think Elikae had a huge amount of control over humans, but if you looked a bit better you realised that they could only control actions. Not emotions. They could trigger actions in someone that would trigger certain reactions in someone else, but even if Erazniel had made Phil talk to him 24/7, there would have always been a chance of them just not hitting it off. All the things Dan thought Elikae could do, just kind of weren’t really true. They could control actions, not emotions. And Dan had known that, but it had never really hit him what it meant.


	14. Chapter 14

Dan and Phil spent Boxing Day on the floor in their lounge. Videogame controllers in their hands and curse words on their tongues. After a quick dinner made up of leftovers from the Chinese food from the day before, they both put on their coats and left the flat.  
Not only was Manchester a lovely place to do your Christmas shopping, it was also a great place to walk around in the evening on Boxing Day. They weren’t actually planning on buying anything, they were just going for the entertainment of walking through the dark streets of the city and looking at the pretty Christmas light decorating the shops.  
After walking around for a few hours, pointing out particularly beautiful Christmas decorations to each other and laughing at the dancing and singing Santa’s in the shop windows, they went into a dodgy café to drink some hot chocolate.  
Christmas 2010 had gone by without a second notice, but Dan was determined to make Christmas 2011 a good one. And that had worked; the radio show and their evening walk on Boxing Day had made this Christmas fun and enjoyable, and Dan couldn’t wait to do it over again next year.

A week later Dan finally saw his friends from university again. He hadn’t seen them – apart from Percy, Dan and him had gone out for a drink three times – ever since Dan had dropped out.  
Phil was with him again and the latter immediately engaged Trevor and Bryce in a conversation, as if they’d never even stopped talking. But Dan didn’t have time to be jealous of his social skills, he had a Percy to talk to and girlfriends to be introduced to.  
Chloe’s girlfriend Jade was a sweet looking girl, she was from Congo and had gorgeous dark eyes. She seemed to be the exact opposite of Chloe, who had just proudly showed off her new nose ring and still had her signature bright pink hair, but it turned out that Jade had a habit of constantly making sarcastic comments which Chloe loved.  
Percy’s girlfriend was called Janice and she was a bit boring. Dan didn’t like labeling people anything negative, but she really was boring. She couldn’t think of anything else to talk about beside celebrity’s fashion choices –fashion disasters, as she called them- and Dan tried his best to think of ways to not have to speak to her.  
The group of people sat at a café in central London. They had lunch and talked about their lives, updated each other on whatever had happened since they’d last met.  
Dan sat through chatter about university and for the first time he didn’t feel bad about himself when talking about something he hadn’t been able to bring himself to do. 

“Sit Phil down, I think the two of you deserve some kind of explanation.”  
It was December 31st, 2011. Just two hours till midnight. Two hours till 2012. Two hours till 2011 was over. 2011 had brought Dan a year out of university, a new flat mate, a radio show on BBC Radio 1, and the realisation that he had become very dependent upon Phil. All in all not a bad year. For the first time in years he had some kind of idea of where he was trying to go with his life, and it felt good to at least know in which direction he was going.  
“Phil, can we talk?”  
“Yeah sure, what about?” Phil’s voice came from the other room. Dan could hear him get up from his chair through the thin walls of their flat. The door opened and his friend’s head appeared in the doorway, smiling brightly at him.  
“Evzynn wants to speak to us.”  
“And Erazniel.” Evzynn added.  
“And Erazniel.” Dan said.

They sat in a circle. Four chairs were pulled up, but in Phil’s eyes only two of them were taken. Dan could see the other two men sitting next to each other. For the first time in months neither of them looked particularly stressed, and he was fairly certain that he and Phil didn’t look very stressed either.  
“Right. How about we tell you a bit at the time and you then tell it to Phil?” Erazniel offered.  
Dan nodded, “Sounds good to me.” He turned to Phil, “I’ll be telling you what they’re saying.”  
“Okay.” Phil replied.

Evzynn cracked his knuckles before speaking up, “The place I’ve been talking about when saying ‘upstairs’, is called The Ifarn. It’s where all Elikae live. We have the ability to teleport from your world to ours whenever we want, but we don’t get to choose where we end up. In your world we always end up near our humans when we teleport here, when we teleport to the Ifarn we either end up in the place where we were summoned, like at the Ministry, or we appear in our homes.” He paused in order to let Dan tell Phil what he’d just said.  
“Every human has an Elik. But a male human does not mean a male Elik. Elikae and their humans share a special bond, which means that when two Elikae who were best friends before fall in love, their humans usually fall in love too. We cannot control the gender of our children, so the Elik kid just ends up with the human kid, no matter what gender they are. Male Elikae can get pregnant and two females in a relationship can get pregnant too, homosexuality is just as common as heterosexuality.”

Erazniel nodded in agreement, “Now that was some of the general information. Going into the history of the Elikae, you’ll find that we were created by E, who is basically our God. Hardly any of us have ever seen him in real life; only the most important Elikae get to have direct contact with him. E created us about 200 before Christ, and no one really knows why he did so. We think he was just lonely and created us solemnly and alone because he could and why wouldn’t he?”  
“Now if you look at an Elik’s appearance you’ll notice that they basically look like humans. There’s only one notable thing about them, which is that they are always and with no exceptions taller than their human.”

“Why did you want to make me walk out onto the road back in 2009? Were you trying to get me killed?” Dan asked.  
“Not at all. See when a human feels happy, their Elik feels happy too. We call this feeling “Bliss”. But after a week of consecutive happiness, the Bliss disappears. So we have to do something to make our human go back to being unhappy, in order for them to be happy again later. But there’s also the part where a human can feel just normal; not happy enough to cause Bliss, but also not unhappy. This is the usual state of mind of a human being.” Evzynn smiled, “When you are with Phil, for example you are happy. When you are without him, you’re in the middle of being happy and unhappy. For the past year you’ve mostly been unhappy, except for the time you spent with Phil playing mindless videogames or going out for dinner with him. If you’re happy, I’m happy too. That’s also one of the reasons why me and Erazniel decided to have you two move in together; you’re both simply happier when you’re together.”

“This is the weirdest thing ever.” Phil said as soon as Dan turned to him to tell him what Evzynn and Erazniel had just said.  
“Any questions?”  
“A ton, actually.” Dan replied, “First of all, why don’t you all just stay in The Ifarn? Wouldn’t that be easier for everyone involved?”  
“Elikae coupled with an Elik are incapable of feeling happiness themselves. In order for us to feel happy, we have to make our human be happy.”  
“Do you have any questions, Phil?” Dan asked the boy next to him.  
“Yes. Why can you speak to them and not to any of the others?”

Evzynn ran a hand through his dark hair, “We’ve established that someone like you, Dan, is capable of speaking to your own Elik because of the special bond you share with me, and you’re capable of speaking to Erazniel because his human is your soul mate and the two of you share parts of your soul.”  
Dan raised his eyebrows, “Excuse me?”  
“Yep, you heard me correctly. Phil and you are soul mates. See, the idea of ‘soul mates’ was never two people whose destiny it was to get married, that’s just what you humans made of it. The real definition of soul mates is two people whose destiny it is to be together forever.”  
“Isn’t that kind of the same thing?”  
“Not at all. You are supposed to be with Phil forever, that doesn’t mean you’re supposed to marry him, it just means that you and him are destined to not leave each other’s lives ever again. You’re just supposed to be together, there are no rules telling you in what way you should be together. Your brother could have been your soul mate too, but I don’t see you marrying your brother either.”  
“Can we only have one soul mate?”  
“Daniel, your soul mate is the one with whom you share most of your soul. You can only share more than half of your soul with one person, as there’s just not enough left to share more than half of your soul with two different people.”  
“What if I were to fall in love? She wouldn’t be my soul mate?”  
“No. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be in love forever and get married. Soul mates are a really difficult concept, Daniel.”  
“But I couldn’t understand Erazniel at first.”  
“Soul mates aren’t pre-established. The spark just lights up somewhere along the way.” Evzynn said patiently.

“What did he say?” Phil asked.  
“We’re soul mates.”  
“Come again?”  
“You and me. We’re soul mates.”  
“I’m sorry to break to you, but I wasn’t aware that we were in a relationship.”  
“That’s because we are not. We’re soul mates as in we aren’t supposed to leave each other’s lives ever and we share most of our soul with the other. He said that soul mates aren’t necessarily romantically involved.”  
Phil rubbed at his eyes, “Of course.”

Evzynn waited till the silence had lasted for a few seconds to make sure that they were done talking to speak up again, “There are of course infertile humans, and Elikae who have twins or triplets when their humans don’t, so there are always left over Elikae. As in they don’t belong to a human. They get a job in the Elikae world. Some of them become politicians, but the most important politicians are Elikae who’ve been around since 200 before Christ. Some kind of natural selection makes some of us immortal, and we’ve taken that as a sign that E has chosen them to do some kind of special job within our world. These immortals would theoretically be able to speak to you too. When they show up, you have to tell me immediately, because that means you’re really in trouble. And by that I mean that that would mean that they’d be trying to stop you. As in either take your gift away from you or, in the worst scenario, kill you.”

“Oh great, I might get killed. Fantastic. Wonderful.”  
“What?” Phil looked worried.  
Dan repeated what Evzynn had just told him and Phil raised his eyebrows thoughtfully, “What have you gotten yourself into, Dan?”  
“Yeah, well, I didn’t choose to get myself hit by a car.”  
“Sorry for that.” Evzynn said.  
“It’s okay.”

They were quiet for a bit whilst Dan and Phil took the new information in. 3 years later and he was still not used to the idea of this other species walking amongst his own. It had made him question not just his own, but everyone’s choices. It had made him both more insecure but more confident in some way as well.  
“I’m sorry for asking this, but how do you guys die?”  
“The same way humans do. Except when we die we get sent back to The Ifarn where we get to be reborn. It never really ends for us.”  
“Sounds crappy.”  
“It is. We usually don’t remember our past lives, but you can do mind training to try and get your mind to remember them.”  
“Were you born before?”  
“Probably. But I’ve never seen the appeal of trying to remember my past lives. I try not to think about the past too much, I’d rather just move on from whatever happened back then.”  
“So maybe you are the reincarnation of a famous Elik?”  
Erazniel snorted, “Yeah, him. Of course.”

Evzynn blushed and punched Erazniel’s arm. For the first time Dan realised that even though the two of them were from a different species, they were still the same age as him and Phil and were practically still kids. And it was his fault that Evzynn had fallen into a vortex of blame and panic up in The Ifarn. It was the first time Dan had ever seen Evzynn blush or show any kind of emotion beside panic. He sure remembered his face of panic and he didn’t think he’d ever forget it, no matter how hard he tried.  
“I could be.” Evzynn argued, “He just doesn’t want to believe that I might have been a very intelligent and admirable person in a past life.”  
“You sure aren’t anymore.” Erazniel teased.  
“Well, as far as I know I’m the only one with the chosen one as their human. Last time I checked your human was pretty normal.”  
“He’s special to me.” Dan got involved.  
“Who is?” Phil asked.  
“You.”  
“What?”  
“Never mind.”

“Yeah, yeah. Everyone is special to someone. Also, Phil has become of great importance upstairs as well. He’s the best friend of the chosen one and he influences your special kid in many ways. If Phil behaves, Dan will behave to.” Erazniel argued.  
“Dan has a mind of his own.”  
When had Evzynn started calling him Dan instead of Daniel?  
“As I said, everyone is special to someone. Everyone is of importance to at least one other person. My human is the most important person in the chosen one’s life.” Erazniel said.  
Dan opened his mouth to argue, but closed it again after quickly considering Erazniel’s statement and realising that it was true what he’d said.  
“It’s all a chain reaction, if you think about it. If one thing hadn’t happened, a lot of other things wouldn’t have happened. If we hadn’t befriended each other, Dan and Phil wouldn’t have been what they are now. If your mother and my father hadn’t introduced us to each other we wouldn’t have been friends and Dan and Phil wouldn’t have been friends. So even our parents are of importance to this case. Everyone is of importance. Maybe one person is closer to the situation than the other, but in some way we’re all of importance. Everyone is important to someone. Existing relationships lead to new relationships.” Erazniel spoke.

“That is such a valid point, I can hardly argue with that.” Evzynn admitted, “You’re kind of right. We’re all somehow involved and we’re all somehow important to all of this.”  
“What are they saying?” Phil asked.  
“They’re arguing about whose human is more important.” Dan replied.  
“You mean me or you?”  
“Yeah.”  
“Obviously you are.”  
Dan smiled at him, “Everyone is important to someone.”


	15. Chapter 15

“If it rains today I will behead Mother Nature.”  
“Violent.”  
“It’s Spring now, no rain allowed.”  
“Are you going to put on your coat though? It’s quite cold.”  
Phil rolled his eyes, “Spring in England is the same as Fall. I’m suing.”  
“Of course you are.” Dan handed his best friend his coat and started putting his own on, “Have you got your wallet?”  
“Dan, I’m not a four year old, I can take care of myself. I’ve got my wallet, I’ve got my keys and I’ve got my coat here.”  
“Yeah, okay. You be a big boy and take care of yourself. Good boy, Phil.”  
Phil stuck his tongue out and opened the door of their flat, stepping aside to let Dan step outside first. It was March 21st, officially Spring as of today. Which meant there was a Spring market in town. Spring market promised a lot of smiles and a lot of laughter, but most of all a lot of useless secondhand objects being sold to unknowing people and a lot of pushy charity people trying to get you to pay money to their obscure charity monthly. 

“Would you like a free balloon?”  
Dan looked away from Phil for a moment and stopped walking. A friendly looking man in a white T-shirt advertising some kind of charity was holding a balloon with the same logo on it as the guy’s shirt out to him. “For free?” Dan asked. The guy nodded. Dan smiled as he accepted the helium filled balloon, and he could just feel Phil roll his eyes at him behind his back, but he didn’t care.  
“Look, I got a balloon.” Dan said, satisfied smirk decorating his face.  
“Are you really happy now?”  
“Definitely.”  
“Happy enough to come to Tesco with me?”  
“What do you want to do at Tesco?”  
“Last time I went shopping there I found this amazing drink and I want to see if they’ve still got it.”  
“You when you went to get groceries last week and then you went to Tesco every day for the rest of the week to get that same drink every time?”  
“Not every day.”  
“At least six times.”  
“Five.” Phil mumbled.  
“Fine. We’ll go.”

They avoided the charity people whilst trying not to walk into one of the kids from a group of kids playing tag as they walked through the busy streets toward the closest Tesco. The market had attracted every inhabitant of the city to it, and the aisles of the usually crowded store were almost deserted. Phil immediately pulled Dan into one of the aisles.  
“I regret everything.” Dan groaned as Phil started looking through the boxes of different colours of juice boxes.  
“You got a balloon, the least you could do is come with me to get me something too.” Phil stated. They were both quiet for a few seconds as Phil tried to find the drink he wanted.  
“Strawberry.” He suddenly exclaimed as he pulled a juice box off the shelf.  
“Yeah, yeah. Okay. Your favourite flavour. I know.”

Phil swung his arm over Dan’s shoulders and nodded, “You are correct, my dear friend.”  
“Why did I marry you again?” As soon as the words had left his mouth he realised his mistake.  
Phil dropped his arm and gave him a confused look, “Did I miss my own wedding?”  
And Dan just started laughing. And he had no idea why, but he did and he couldn’t stop.  
“I didn’t mean to say that.” He managed to choke out.

Phil started laughing along and it didn’t take long for it to turn into a giggle fit. They drew the attention of bystanders, but they didn’t care. Because they were apparently married and nothing really mattered anyway. In the great spectrum of things nothing mattered, and that was the reason that to them every small thing mattered.  
To make things even worse Dan’s balloon chose that exact moment to burst with such a loud obnoxious sound that everyone looked up in surprise, laying eyes on the two laughing boys in the aisle with the drinks who were holding a juice box and the remains of a balloon and who were clearly having the time of their lives just by being there.

“This is the worst day of my life.” Dan said between giggles.  
“It’s the best of mine though.” Phil replied, “I got my juice and you and me are getting married. This is my legacy.”  
“We should pick up the remains of the balloon.”  
“Hey, don’t look at me, it’s your balloon.” He waited a second before adding: “Or well, it was your balloon.”  
“I am mourning, don’t be such an emotionless bastard.”  
Phil started laughing again and punched him in the arm playfully, “I’m just trying to lighten the mood.”  
“You must be fun at funerals.”  
“Do you think there’s such a thing as funeral clowns? Because if there is I’m quitting YouTube and starting my career as a professional funeral clown.”  
“You are the worst. Now start picking up balloon remains, there’s an angry looking employee walking toward us.”  
“He’s just no fun. Looks like someone needs a funeral clown.”  
“Pick up the stupid balloon pieces.”

Still laughing they started picking up the pieces of balloon that were scattered everywhere.  
The employee stopped walking when he realised that they were cleaning up, fortunately, and he stood there watching them for a while until he eventually left again. Dan and Phil noticed the fact that he had left at the same time and gave each other a look.  
“You’ve missed some.” The teenage boys surrounding the boy who’d spoken laughed. Dan felt the urge to give them the finger, but managed to contain himself. Although he couldn’t help himself from making a snarky remark, “Ah yes, thank you. Did you know blindness is really inconvenient when trying to collect pieces of balloon?” He gave them a dirty look before adding, “Keep walking, kid.”  
“What, you think you’re better than us just because you’re older?” An other boy stepped forward and gave Dan a look that dared him to go further.

“No, I think I’m better than you because I’ve never gone through a phase of annoying random people in a supermarket.”  
“You want to start a fight?”  
Dan couldn’t help but laugh, “I don’t even have a witty reply to that. Please just stop embarrassing yourselves and leave.”  
“Are you too scared?”  
“Yeah, okay. I think that’s enough.” Unlike Dan, Phil actually stepped away from the shelves and walked up to the group. He stood close enough to make them realise that he was about four inches taller than the tallest of the group and apparently that was all the encouragement they needed to raise their hands in defense and murmur things along the lines of: “We’re just kidding, dude.” as they left the aisle.

“Kids nowadays.” Dan said.  
Phil rolled his eyes at him, “You are still a part of them.”  
“I am not a kid.”  
“You’re only 20.”  
“Like it’s my fault that you are a hundred years old.”  
“There’s this thing called over exaggerating and you seem to be very good at it.”  
“Yeah, okay. You’re 25. You’re only four years older than me. We’re like the same generation.”  
“No, you are the ‘university generation’ and I am the ‘settling down generation’.”  
“I’m not in university anymore, do you even remember my mental breakdown year?”  
“Yes. And you may not actually be enrolled, but you are of that age. You’re in the age group.”  
“There’s 25 year olds who are in university.”  
“They are the exceptions who prove the rule.”  
“I think we’ve finished collecting the pieces of balloon.”  
“We should probably leave before that employee comes back to yell at us.”  
“You still need to pay for your drink.”

“Right.” Phil looked down at his hand and quickly put the juice box on a random shelf before starting to speed walk through the aisles and out of the store. Dan had to sprint to keep up with him whilst at the same time trying to keep a straight face and failing miserably at doing so.  
“That’s the most fun I’ve ever had in a Tesco.” Phil said as they started walking at a normal pace again.  
“To sum it all up, you attempted to buy a juice box but failed, our wedding was so secret that even we didn’t know about it, my balloon exploded out of nowhere, and a random bunch of kids tried starting a fight with us.”  
“We should go to Tesco again soon. That was hilarious.”  
“Yeah, hopefully we won’t run into those kids again though, they were super annoying.”  
Phil shrugged, “You got a chance to show off your witty remarks though, that was a plus. Hey, how about we go get ourselves a sandwich at Subway?”  
Dan was eager to agree, “Where’s the nearest one?” He asked.  
“Like around the corner or something.”  
It turned out to be two blocks away, but the longer than anticipated walk was totally worth it when they walked in and their noses picked up the sent of the toasted bread and the fresh ingredients.  
There was no line and they got to order right away. Dan could recite Phil’s order by heart; they’d been to Subway together plenty of times and he’d ordered the same thing each time.  
Dan was in no place to criticize him though; he’d only ever had one kind of sandwich as well.

“You know,” Dan started as he took of his coat and hung it over the back of the chair he was going to sit on, “I think heaven is just one giant Subway combined with like a movie theatre and a game hall.”  
“That would be no fun if you were old when you died and into knitting.”  
“Maybe heaven is different for everyone.”  
“So everyone is alone in their own heaven?”  
Dan thought about that for a second, “I’d want you in my heaven though, it wouldn’t be heaven for me if you were not there.”  
“That’s the cutest thing anyone has ever said to me.”  
Dan laughed but quickly got serious again, “No, honestly. I’d get lonely. I prefer watching movies and eating Subway with you over laughing to myself whilst watching Lord Of The Rings.”  
“Fair point. Maybe I’d be in my own heaven and you’d get some kind of replica of me to hang out with in yours.”  
“That would suck though.”  
“Yeah, but you wouldn’t know that it wasn’t the real me.”  
“I’d just ask them about one of our inside jokes and they wouldn’t know it and I’d know that they weren’t you.”  
“An exact replica of me would know our inside jokes though.”  
“Let’s just never die so that I can be sure I’m actually with you when I think I’m with you and not with some scary replica person.”  
“You could watch Buffy with a clone of me, how cool would that be?”  
“Yeah, it’d be cool for like a day, but then I’d be over it and I’d just want to be with the real Phil. Also, what fun is having a clone when there’s no one to be excited over it with?”  
Phil took a bite of his sandwich and it reminded Dan that he had a sandwich lying untouched in front of him too, and he quickly picked it up.  
They sat and ate in silence for a while, until Phil spoke up again, “Maybe heaven is a giant castle with everything you could ever imagine in it and you could freely move around so that you can go hang out in the places you want to go and you could just invite others to join you. Like a replica of earth, but with more castle and less planet.”  
“It’d be like one big sleepover.”  
“Exactly. Maybe you could even share rooms. We could share a room.”  
“It’d be exactly the same as now except we’d be dead.”  
Phil laughed, “Yeah. Maybe we could even do YouTube up there.”  
This time it was Dan’s turn to laugh, “We’d just recreate our lives from down here up there and nothing would change.”  
“Apart from the castle part.”  
“Yeah, but we never go outside, so if we continued that up there we wouldn’t even notice that we were in a castle.”  
“We’re outside now though.”  
“We are.” Dan admitted.

“You know what,” Phil started after a short silence, “We should move to London.”  
“Okay.”  
“Really?”  
The thought of moving to London had immediately released the memories of wanting to move to London when he still lived in Wokingham. The want had gone away when he’d moved to Manchester, partially because he was okay with Manchester too -it was still more of a city than Wokingham-, but mainly because his existential crisis had distracted him and he hadn’t really thought about it afterwards. But he was still willing to move to London. Hell, he would still love to move to London.  
“Yeah, really. I’ve wanted to move to London since forever. But why do you suddenly want to?”  
“It’s not suddenly, to be honest. I’ve been thinking about it for quite a while. I just didn’t know how to bring it up until now.”  
“Do you think we can afford it?”  
“I’ve researched some things, and yes. We could easily afford it if we wanted to.”  
“I’m up for it.”  
“Well, that went better than I expected. I thought I was going to have to convince you.”  
Dan laughed, “Nope, I’m ready to go. Let’s pack our bags and leave.”  
“I thought you liked Manchester.”  
“I love Manchester, but London, man. London.”

“If you ever want to buy me something, buy me a harmonica.”  
“Why would I want to buy you something?”  
“Because I am a great person and you love me.”  
Phil laughed, “Which one would you want?”  
Dan’s eyes scanned over the different colours and patterns. “This one.” He said, picking up a black one with golden letters on it that said: “Music is everything, everything is music.”  
“Okay.” Phil said. He grabbed the harmonica from Dan’s hands and took it over to the cash register.  
“Hey, what are you doing?” Dan walked after him.  
“Buying you a harmonica of course, what does it look like?”  
“Why?”  
“Because you said that if I ever wanted to buy you something I should buy you a harmonica. I want to buy you something, therefore I’m buying you a harmonica.”  
“Well, thanks, I think.”  
“You’re welcome.”

The train station was crowded. The families with children were all trying to get home in time for dinner, whilst the teenagers stayed for a little while longer till the alcohol would show up and they could get drunk.  
Dan and Phil were stood beside a bench (they weren’t going to sit on it, you could never know who or what had touched that thing before you) and were both tired but content. They hadn’t actually bought anything, except for their sandwiches for lunch and Dan’s harmonica, but they’d had a lot of fun just walking about and making fun of some of the weird stuff being sold.  
“They should do something about all the people in this place. If one person were to push someone it would cause a giant chain reaction and someone could fall onto the rails. It’s dangerous.”  
“Yet a great way of keeping the number of humans on this planet under control. Jelly bean?” A stranger had come to stand beside them and held out a small box of jelly beans to the two boys. They looked at each other in confusion and turned to give the man a strange look at the exact same time.  
“No. No thank you.” Dan replied, strange look still on his face.  
The man shrugged and put a jelly bean in his mouth, “If you can’t keep yourself on your feet, natural selection might choose to eliminate you.”  
“There should be a less violent way of doing that. And less messy. Less traumatic for bystanders. Generally a better way.” Phil said.  
“True. But there’s a better way to do most things in life, us humans just have a habit of hardly ever choosing the best way. You sure you don’t want a jelly bean?”  
“Yeah, no. I’m okay. Thank you.”  
“You’re missing out, son.”


	16. Chapter 16

The deal had been closed. The flat was ready for them to move into, and the boxes in the hallway constantly reminded them of how close the actual move was. Every time he walked past them Dan couldn’t help but smile; his dream was coming true: he was actually moving to London. Evzynn and Erazniel had been enthusiastic from the start. They’d supported their decision and even their government had been okay with it. They had everyone’s permission and they were ready to go.  
Though before the move, there was also their first ever VidCon. The both of them had two big things to look forward to, and the smiles never left their faces as they went about doing their daily routines.  
Both the VidCon date and the move date were edging closer and as they got busier preparing everything they never lost their smiles. They didn’t even get into an argument when Phil tripped over Dan’s bag for VidCon which was standing in the middle of the living room.

The days went by slow and they fell into a routine of waking up around noon, having brunch together, not seeing each other until dinner, having dinner together, and then not seeing each other again until one of them peeked into the other’s room to say goodnight (which was usually multiple hours after midnight). Dan got used to falling asleep to the noise of Phil putting the stuff he wouldn’t need for a while in boxes and carrying the full ones to the hallway, piling them with the other dozen. He usually couldn’t get to sleep until he heard Phil’s bed creak when he got into it; it was then that his eyes finally closed and he allowed himself to doze off.

They arrived at the LA airport with their luggage without much trouble. Dan was searched by a security guard at the airport in Manchester, Phil couldn’t find his passport during check in, and Dan almost tripped over a small child in the passage of the airplane, but they were okay. They were in California, had all their stuff, and neither of them was too emotionally traumatised by any of the small occurrences.  
It was seven pm LA time, which meant that it was eleven am in the UK and in their bodies. They’d both slept the entire time on the plane, so they’d missed the food trolleys and they were both starving. “Let’s go to Chipotle. I’ve always wanted to go there.” Phil suggested.  
Dan laughed and nodded, “Yeah, okay. But let’s drop our luggage off at our hotel first.”  
Their hotel turned out to be fancier than they were. It had those unnecessary decorations and way too expensive food in the fridge. 

“I’m going to starve to death if we don’t leave now. Can’t you get your jumper some other time? You’re in Los Angeles, why do you even need a jumper?”  
“It’s cold.” Phil pouted.  
Dan sighed, “Yeah, okay. Are you sure it’s in that bag?”  
“No. Can you check my backpack for me?”  
Dan flopped down onto his bed on his belly and grabbed Phil’s backpack which was half shoved underneath the chair in the corner. “Here it is.” He exclaimed triumphantly as he held Phil’s favourite jumper in the air. “Los Angeles in June and Philip Michael Lester needs a jumper.” He threw it at him and Phil caught it.  
“It’s not my fault you’re like coldblooded or something. I need to keep warm.”

When Phil’s phone started to loudly play Staying Alive by the Bee Gees at six in the morning, Dan could safely say that he had not slept for even a second. He’d been wide awake all night and he still was. “I’m going to fall asleep during VidCon.” He predicted.  
Phil groaned and blindly reached out for his phone somewhere on his night stand.  
“You slept like all night. How did you accomplish that? I haven’t slept at all.”  
Phil didn’t answer his question but just started looking for his phone more aggressively and eventually gave up on trying to find it with his head buried in the pillow and looked up. He quickly shut his eyes again and kept them closed for a few seconds before hesitantly opening one a little bit, “Turn off the lights, oh my God, are you trying to blind me or something?”  
“The lights aren’t even on. It’s the natural sunlight. Take it in, Phil. Might be good for you.”  
Phil just groaned again and finally managed to find his phone and turn off the alarm.  
“Rise and shine!” Dan said cheerfully. It earned him a cushion being flung his way. “Well that’s not very nice of you. I’m just trying to lighten the mood.”  
“It’s six am, Dan. Shut up.” Phil replied in his croaky morning voice.  
Dan started digging around in his bag, looking for the clothes he’d packed specially for this day. “You know how you always complain about thinking that you’ve forgotten something whenever we got somewhere?”  
“Well, I wouldn’t call it complaining. I’d call i-…”  
“Yeah, okay. This time you didn’t complain and I’ve actually forgotten something.”  
“What did you forget?” Phil finally rolled out of bed and rubbed his eyes as he stood beside it, looking lost and exhausted.  
“My straighteners.” Dan replied.  
“You can borrow mine, if you can find them. They’re somewhere in my bag. But your hair looks fine, you don’t have to straighten it again.”  
“Last time I straightened it was like two days ago, Phil. I do need to straighten it, or else I’ll walk around looking like freaking Hagrid.”  
“Hagrid looks great though.”  
“Do you think you’re funny?”  
“I think I’m hilarious.”  
Dan couldn’t help but laugh, “I hate you. Where’s your bag?”  
Phil kicked at it with his foot, “You look fine.” He repeated before heading into the bathroom.

“I don’t.” Dan shouted after him. Phil’s bag was a mess. Dan always tried to pack his bag as conveniently as he could, but Phil seemed to have just crammed everything in there without looking back. Typical. After a minute of looking for Phil’s straighteners he decided that he actually couldn’t care less about his hair –his body clock had decided that it was time to go to bed and he was getting sleepy- and ran a hand through his hair before going back to the clothes that he’d put on his bed.  
When Phil got back from the bathroom, hair wet and wearing only a pair of boxer shorts, he was fully dressed and was lying on his back on Phil’s bed.  
“What are you doing?” Phil asked.  
Dan just shrugged, “I’m tired.”  
“You literally just got out of bed.”  
“Yes, but I didn’t sleep at all. Not even a minute. And now I’m tired and I want to stay here.” Dan sulked.  
“When I’m finished getting dressed, you’re going to have to get off that bed. No excuses. VidCon today, remember?”  
“No.” Dan murmured, closing his eyes.  
“You shouldn’t be allowed any responsibilities.” Phil sighed.  
Dan yawned, but didn’t reply.  
When he was finished getting dressed and asked Dan if he wanted to go get breakfast, he realised that his best friend had fallen asleep. 

Dan played with his food during breakfast and Phil had to constantly snap his fingers in front of his face to keep him awake. And every time he did so he got an annoyed groan from Dan, who desperately wanted to sleep. His brain was too tired to comprehend why it wasn’t dark and why Phil couldn’t just leave him alone and let him sleep.  
“Are you trying to ruin my life?” Dan murmured when Phil once again snapped his fingers in front of his face.  
“You know what, I’ll get you some coffee.”  
“I don’t want coffee.”

Phil didn’t reply, but got up and walked back to the breakfast buffet. Dan rubbed at his eyes, he had to stay awake. It felt like there was a cloud in his mind, fogging up his common sense.  
He didn’t notice the woman walking up to the table until she spoke up, “Are you Dan or Phil?”  
Dan raised his head and blinked a few times. Was he supposed to know this woman? Was his blurry mind playing tricks on him?  
“Yes.” He said.  
She raised her eyebrows and he realised that that wasn’t an answer to her question. “Dan.” He corrected himself, “I’m Dan.”  
“Slept well?”  
“Very, thank you.” He didn’t feel like explaining the concept of a jetlag to this woman. She looked just a little too ‘bubblegum’ to him. She had blonde, almost white hair, light blue eyes –kind of like Phil’s- and was wearing a pink dress. Umbridge, he realised. That’s whom she reminded him of.  
Phil got back to their table with two white mugs in his hands. Dan was glad to be able to shift his eyes from the small woman standing next to him to the mug that was placed in front of him. It had the logo of the hotel they were staying at on the side, and although he knew what it looked like, he studied it closely, just to avoid having to look at the woman.  
“Phil?”  
“Yes.” Phil replied.  
“My name is Lindsay. I’ll be escorting you and your friend to the Anaheim Convention Centre today.”  
“That’s great. I’m going to guess that Dan wasn’t very talkative, sorry for that.”  
“Yeah, it’s alright.” But the tone of her voice told Dan that it wasn’t alright at all.

VidCon was a mess. It was a well-organized mess, but still a mess. They sat in a booth and met fans for hours, got on stage and messed around with the audience for a bit. Dan’s sleepiness had gone away by the time they were placed in their booth, but now that the first day of VidCon was nearing its end he had gone back to being exhausted, and he knew that it had nothing to do with his jetlag.  
“Do you think it’s socially acceptable to fall asleep on this table?” Phil asked him.  
Dan shrugged, too tired to even think of a witty reply. They watched the thousands of fans leave the premises through the different exits. “Why did we decide to move to London like two weeks after VidCon? I’m going to need at least two months to recover from this.” Dan put his head down on the table and closed his eyes. He could just fall asleep right there if he wanted to, but that would probably be unprofessional. It would be, right?  
“You still awake?” Phil asked softly.  
Dan groaned.  
“Fair enough.” The older boy replied.

They both slept though the alarm the next morning, and didn’t wake up until Lindsay walked in and pulled the blankets off them. “Wake up. You have to be at the Anaheim Convention Centre in half an hour.”  
“What time is it?” Dan asked, voice hoarse and squeaky.  
“Half seven.”

“Damn it.” Dan forced himself to get out of his bed and quickly pulled the T shirt he wore the day before over his head. His hair had now gone full hobbit. They’d set the alarm clock earlier so that they could both straighten their hair before they left, but there was no time now. They had to get dressed and get a cab, and they might not even make it in time like that.  
Phil handed him his jeans and as he started to put on his shoes half a minute later he realised that he’d never gotten dressed as fast as he had today.  
“New highscore.” He whispered to Phil as they speed walked after Lindsay through the empty halls of the hotel.  
Phil chuckled, “If we keep going at this pace we’ll set a highscore for reaching the lift too.”  
As soon as they stepped into the lift with a distressed looking Lindsay they stopped giggling and did everything they could to stop the grins from appearing on their faces.  
“Why didn’t you two set an alarm?” Her voice sounded accusing, as if they’d consciously made the choice to not wake up at the set time.  
“We did.” Phil said.  
“Then why didn’t you wake up?”  
“We were tired and slept though it. How did you even get into our room?”  
“I went to check up on you, but you didn’t reply to me knocking on the door, so I went downstairs to get a key pass and I got one.”  
“They just gave you a pass to our room?”  
“Not just,” Lindsay said. They stepped out of the lift and started walking through the lobby towards the glass doors. “I had to show them my VidCon pass.”  
They got into cab that was stood right in front of the hotel.  
“I’ll be paying you for the time you spent waiting. Thank you.” Lindsay said, forcing a smile at the driver.  
She looked more like Umbridge than ever, Dan decided.

They arrived about ten minutes late, but no one scolded them. Well, apart from Lindsay. She scolded them all the way to their booth until they’d both sat down. “When I come pick you up, you better be ready.” She warned.  
They both raised their hands in defense at the exact same time and gave each other a weird look as soon as she turned her back and started walking away.  
“Does she remind you of Umbridge too or am I alone in this?” Phil asked.  
Dan laughed, “I’ve been thinking that ever since she showed up at our table at breakfast yesterday.”

On the third day they got up in time, but Dan decided that this was the perfect time to go ‘to hell with it’ and went to the Anaheim Convention Centre with messy and curly hair.  
During the after party Cat came up to them and asked him why he looked like Bilbo Baggins, and he replied that he was tired and didn’t care about anything but his bed.  
“So when are you two moving to London?” Cat asked.  
“In two weeks.” Phil replied, “Dan is regretting it already.”  
Dan laughed, “I’m going to need two months to recover from VidCon, this move is going to be so stressful, I don’t think I can handle that yet.”

Upon their return home Dan did indeed sleep the entire day, spent the night eating pizza in front of his computer, and then slept some more. He did not feel like fixing his body clock yet, even though Phil rolled his eyes at him every time he found Dan in front of the TV when he came in to say goodnight. But the boxes in the hallway were judging him, telling him to pack some more of his stuff, because the move was edging closer and closer. Phil had told him that he could stay up every night if he wanted to but if he woke him up he’d kick him out of the flat. So Dan had to fix his sleeping schedule in order to be able to pack. He’d definitely wake Phil up if he were to start packing in the middle of the night.  
So that found Dan pulling and all-nighter and spending the next day packing, until he was so tired that he could hardly keep his eyes open. When he finally went to bed at half past eight, Phil patted him on the back and said: “Congratulations. You’ve gone from a ‘rebellious teenager’-sleeping schedule to a ‘seven year old who goes to bed after Sesame street’- sleeping schedule.”  
“Gee, thanks Phil. What an encouragement for me to go to bed earlier.”  
“With earlier I meant before five in the morning, not half past eight.”  
“You should have clarified that then.”

The flat was even bigger than Dan could remember. His hands ran over the smooth keys of the piano in his bedroom. The former occupants of the flat couldn’t get it out, so Dan and Phil had decided to take it. Not that Dan minded, he loved to play the piano and he’d always wanted to own a real one himself. He’d had enough of keyboards already; he’d used those all his life.  
They had a week. A week to make everything look at least slightly decent. After that week the housewarming party was being held. As opposed to their flat in Manchester, they were actually planning on staying here permanently. Dan didn’t want to think about him and Phil parting ways ever, he wanted them to stay here, in their flat in London, forever. Maybe they could just stay there till they were old and wrinkly, making YouTube videos until the day they died.

On one hand he didn’t want to live with anyone beside Phil, but on the other hand he also wanted to be able to sit with Phil and their grandchildren when he was old. The best part about being young was that he didn’t have to decide what he wanted to do yet. But Phil was four years older, he was probably thinking about his options. Did Phil want to move out at some point? Would be leave Dan alone when he found a girlfriend?  
“Phil?” He called. His voice echoed through the flat.  
“Yeah?”  
“Where are you?”  
“In the lounge.”  
Dan stepped over the boxes standing in his way and walked out of his room, to the lounge.  
“Can I ask you something weird?”  
Phil raised his eyebrows, “Weirder than ‘have you ever considered the possibility that there might be a person of an other species constantly walking behind you’?”  
“A little less weird.”  
“Okay, shoot.”  
“What would you do if you got a girlfriend? Would you move out?”  
“Is there a reason you’re asking me this?”  
Dan shrugged, “I just turned 21. I don’t have to worry about anything. You’re 25. You must have thought about this before.”  
“Are you afraid I’ll leave you?”  
Dan stared at his socks intently, “Little bit.”  
“Dan, even if I were to move out, we’d still stay best friends. We’re soul mates, remember? We’re going to platonically grow old together.”  
Dan gave him a relieved grin as he looked back up, “I want to stay here with you and make YouTube videos forever, but I also want to have a wife and children.”  
“Our wives and children can just move into our flat here. We’ll just live here together.”  
They both laughed and the nervous feeling that had been pooling in Dan’s stomach gradually disappeared.


	17. Chapter 17

Crowded rooms were still not among Dan’s favourite things. His ability to handle large crowds had improved since Phil’s birthday a few years ago, but not enough to make him a good host of a housewarming party. Their flat was filled with people drinking tea and trying to talk to him about how great the new flat was, whilst he was just trying to make sure that everyone had a drink.  
Percy was there. He’d taken Trevor, Bryce, Chloe and Jade with him. His parents and brother were there, Phil’s parents and his brother and his girlfriend were there, and Dan could see the everyone’s Elikae chatting away in the corner of the lounge, near the fireplace. Evzynn and Erazniel were with them. The two of them had become quite big amongst the other Elikae. The Elik of the only kid with the ability to see them, and the Elik of that kid’s soul mate.

Some of his friends from high school were there to check up on him, ask him why he hadn’t had time to hang out with them anymore after he’d left and to jokingly congratulate him on his and Phil’s engagement. Dan just rolled his eyes at them and laughed, before quickly moving on to the next group of people who wanted to talk to him.  
He found Phil in the kitchen with Chris and PJ, some of their YouTube friends, and upon further inspection he found his mum by the sink, washing cups. Typical.

“Mum, you don’t have to wash those cups. We have a dishwasher.”  
“Yes, but if I do it now you won’t have to put them in the dishwasher later.”  
Dan narrowed his eyes, he didn’t like her tone one bit, “Are you okay, mum?”  
She finally turned around to face him, “Yeah, yes. I’m fine. It’s just that you’re growing up and you’ve now got your second flat already. I watched you grow up right in front of me and I never really stopped to realise that it would one day end and you would move out and start your own life where I wouldn’t be playing a key role.”  
“Of course you’re still playing a key role in my life. You’re my mum, for goodness sake. You’ve taken care of me for eighteen years, you deserve a break.” He smiled at her and she smiled back before pulling him into a hug.

He wasn’t much of a hugger. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d properly hugged someone beside Phil. He could remember hugging his mum when he was younger. He was small and she was big and when he was hurt he could hide in her embrace. Now he was big and she was small and he wasn’t sure which one of them was hiding in the embrace and which one was comforting the other.  
He had moved on from his old life without even realising it. He’d moved away from his hometown and started a new life in Manchester and then later in London. He had been so busy growing up that he’d only now noticed that not only had he grown up in the eighteen years he lived with his parents, but they’d grown old too. He’d never before noticed that her face looked older than it did when he was a kid. She’d aged so gradually that he hadn’t even noticed.

The hug went on for longer than a usual hug did, and when Dan finally let go he was on the verge of tears and his mum was back to being her strong self. She smiled at him and patted his shoulder, “You’re all grown up now, Dan. Don’t use happiness as your goal, use it as a way to reach your goal.”  
Dan watched her walk out of the kitchen and ran a hand through his hair. Phil, PJ and Chris were still there, he realised. They’d seen everything. But he couldn’t bring himself to care.

“You know,” Phil said as the two of them tidied there flat up after the party that had just taken place there, “After that whole story about Elikae a few months again, no one ever told me why.”  
“Why what?”  
“Why they do what they do. Why did this E guy making them dependant upon humans’ happiness? Can’t they go back to The Ifarn? Leave us alone?”  
“Maybe there’s a way to cut them off from humans?” Dan offered. “I mean there has to be. But that would also mean sending them back to The Ifarn completely, I’m assuming. So I would never be able to see Evzynn and Erazniel again.”  
“Are you friends with them?”  
Dan stopped what he was doing for a second to think, “Yeah.” He decided. “I think they are. I’m not sure if they see me that way too, but I think I could consider them my friends.”  
“Do you think they want to go back to The Ifarn and be cut off from the humans?”  
“I don’t know, from what I’ve heard of The Ifarn it’s not a very pleasant place to be at the moment, and that’s mainly my fault. And as they are close to me, I don’t think it would be a very pleasant place for them either.”  
“Yeah, but if they just go back to The Ifarn and are cut off from the humans all the problems with you and the other humans wouldn’t matter anymore.”  
“True, but would cutting them off from the humans also cut them off from the happiness supply from their humans?”  
“Can’t you summon Evzynn or something and ask him?”  
Dan laughed, “I think I can. Should I try?”  
Phil nodded and Dan took a deep breath, “Evzynn? Are you there? Or Erazniel? Anyone would do, really.”

Evzynn and Erazniel showed up together. Erazniel had the iPad-like device in his hand and Evzynn looked a bit annoyed, “This better be very important, Howell.” Yes, definitely annoyed.  
“Phil and I were wondering, is there a way to send you all back to The Ifarn?”  
“Do you want to get rid of us?”  
Erazniel snapped his fingers from his free hand and the iPad-thing disappeared, “I don’t think that’s exactly what he means.”  
“Well, no. Not exactly. But it comes down to that, I guess.”  
“Sit down.” Evzynn sighed.

The four of them sat down on Dan and Phil’s new couch in the lounge, “Okay,” Evzynn said, “Shoot.”  
“We were wondering why you were made to live with a human by your side at all times, and if there’s a way to cut that connection. Like, so that you could be happy for yourself instead of for me.”  
Evzynn and Erazniel exchanged a look, “Where did this question come from?”  
“Phil asked it. But it’s been on my mind as well. Is there a way of sending you all back to your own world?”  
“So you do want to get rid of us?”  
“Well, yeah. No offense, but having someone control your every choice is not the most pleasant thing ever.”  
“But you and Phil are the only ones who know that it’s not actually you making choices.”  
“That’s even worse. It makes you question every single friendship and every single thing anyone’s ever done for you. I want to be sure that when I befriend someone, I’ve actually befriended that person and not their Elik.”

“Fair enough.” Erazniel said, “There should be a way. But that would completely ban all of us from the earth. We would never be able to see each other again.”  
“Yeah, that’s what we thought too. That’s the only downside.”  
“Also the fact that me and Erazniel are not exactly loved by the majority of the Elikae. We’re blamed for the chaos in the government. For not being able to keep you under control.”  
“But if you all go back to The Ifarn and can’t come back to earth, I won’t be any trouble to you anymore. The Elikae will have nothing to do with me anymore. I’ll go back to being exactly the same as every other human without any special abilities.”  
“Look, theoretically this all sounds great, but if we were to do this, we would have to find a way to actually do this. I think me and Erazniel would be able to handle whatever got thrown at us if we were to ban everyone to The Ifarn, but I wouldn’t know how to actually do this.”  
“We’re also not sure if humans are capable of taking care of themselves. They haven’t done that in centuries.” Erazniel added.  
“We’ll figure something out. We’re smart enough. This is about you. Do you think you two can handle the wrath of the government?”  
Evzynn and Erazniel laughed, “Nice choice of words. And yes, I think we can.”  
“I hate to bring this up, but what if you get killed?”  
“Yeah, well, then we’d be dead. But two lives aren’t much of a price to pay in order to free seven billion humans and give almost eight billion Elikae a life of their own.”  
“Wait, there are eight billion Elikae?” Dan asked.  
“Almost eight billion Elikae.” Evzynn corrected him.  
‘Okay, but there’s eight billion Elikae and only one government?”  
“As opposed to you humans, we are led by one government, so that we are united as eight billion, instead of as over 200 different groups.”

“Let’s get back on subject,” Erazniel interrupted, “If we are serious about this, we should get other Elikae to look for ways to do it. We have to get others involved, because we cannot do this on our own.”  
“Sounds good.” Dan agreed.  
“So we’re really serious about this? We’re not going to take a few days to think about it?”  
Dan shook his head, “What have we got to lose?”  
“Oh well, I don’t know. The lives of all Elikae, maybe?”  
“So you’re in?” Dan chose to ignore Evzynn’s previous comment.  
“Absolutely.” Evzynn nodded and he grinned in disbelief, “I can’t believe this is actually happening.”  
“Okay, well Evzynn, we should head back to The Ifarn to try and get some Elikae to research our options here. Let’s go.”  
“Any more questions?” Evzynn asked Dan.  
“I don’t think so. Do you think we can pull this off?”  
“I honestly don’t know, but we can always try.” Erazniel replied, “Let’s go, Ev.” He added.  
As soon as the two Elikae had left, Dan told Phil what they’d spoken about. Phil listened to him intently, and occasionally nodded to let Dan know that he understood.  
“So this is actually happening? We’re going to send them back to The Ifarn permanently?”  
Dan smiled, “I think we are. You know what, I’m going to make a video. I’m in a great mood and I’ve been neglecting my channel lately.”  
Phil nodded in agreement, “Sounds like a great plan.”

They went out for dinner together for the first time in weeks, maybe even months. They both knew that everything was about to blow up, so they both took this as one of their last moments to just be careless and free. If Dan was honest with himself, he had to admit that the day he ended up in the hospital after his car accident was the day his carelessness and freedom were truly taken away from him, even though Evzynn had hardly Plot Twisted him ever since that day, and he used to do it all the time before that day. If you looked at it from that point of view you’d say that Dan had gained freedom on that day, but he knew that wasn’t really true. From that day he had gotten the weight of another species on his shoulders and the only thing he really wanted was for that weight to be lifted off him and to go back to being his careless self. He’d even be content with the Elikae staying with them, as long as he couldn’t see them anymore and would somehow forgot that they existed.  
He wanted to go back to the time where everything was just easy; he went to school, hung out with his friends, played videogames, and didn’t care about his future or responsibilities. He’d have gone through his existential crisis without the will of an other species’ government playing any role at all. It sounded pathetic when he really thought about it. His whole life since the accident had been ridiculous. He suddenly felt blessed to have someone like Phil with him. Who else would have believed him if he’d come to them with his strange story? But Phil had taken it. Had believed what he’d told him, even though there was no evidence at all.

“Are you going to eat or what?”  
Dan’s head shot up, he hadn’t even realised that Phil had almost finished his food and the only thing he’d done was push his’ around his plate with his fork.  
“Yeah.” He said. He quickly put some sushi in his mouth.  
“We should play Guitar Hero tonight, we haven’t played that in ages.”  
“We also haven’t watched Buffy in ages. Or Death Note.”  
“We need to catch up on our TV shows and videogames.”  
They both knew that they weren’t going to have the time to do all these things, but the carefree chatter about doing so relaxed them both. They needed all the relaxation they could get before the Elikae came up with a plan.

They picked up an old habit of doing mindless activities until about three am, until one of them noted that it was almost morning and they took off for bed laughing.  
Dan took a quick shower and brushed his teeth. He was tired and content and falling asleep wouldn’t be a problem. The night had been fun. They’d watched TV shows, played videogames, drank tea and just laughed and chatted, like they hadn’t done in ages.  
The last day he hadn’t thought of Elikae or the weight pressing down on him was probably in March, on the day of the Spring market.  
He turned off the lights and curled up under his covers. He had been right, falling asleep was no problem at all. He’d dozed off within ten minutes. But instead of a good night sleep he fell into a scary spiral of nightmares.

Evzynn and Erazniel were screaming at him that he was going to die, whilst a giant elephant tried to trample him. Phil tried pulling him away from the elephant, but another group of elephants showed up, and instead of trying to kill just him they were now also trying to trample Phil, Evzynn and Erazniel. And then they ran, and the elephants followed them, trampling everything in their way. Evzynn suddenly disappeared and Erazniel was shouting at Dan and Phil to stop running and let the elephants take them, but they kept running. Erazniel stopped running, Dan yelled at him to keep running, to come with them, but the elephants were edging closer and closer. Phil called his name, but when he looked around he couldn’t find his best friend anywhere. He called Phil’s name, but no one replied.  
His eyes shot open and in all his fright he shot up and almost head butted Phil in the face.  
“Jesus Dan, are you okay? You were screaming my name in your sleep.”  
Dan rubbed his eyes, “No.” He replied honestly.  
“What were you dreaming about?”  
“There were these elephants, they were trying to kill Evzynn, Erazniel, you and me. And then Evzynn disappeared and Erazniel stopped running and told us to let the elephants kill us. I heard you call my name but I couldn’t find you. I thought you’d died.”  
“I’m not dead.” Phil clarified, “Come here.” He pulled Dan into his arms. The adrenaline of the nightmare was slowly leaving Dan’s body and he’d become too tired to raise his arms to hug Phil back. He put his head on Phil’s shoulder and closed his eyes.  
As long as he had Phil he’d be okay.


	18. Chapter 18

Dan woke up with Phil’s arm lying over his stomach. He didn’t remember much from what had happened after Phil had woken him up from his nightmares, but he hadn’t gotten one again afterwards. The older boy was still fast asleep and Dan sneaked out from underneath his arm, trying not to wake him up, and went to the kitchen. He didn’t feel like having breakfast. He wasn’t hungry at all and the nightmares were still spooking through his head, trying to scare him off. Did Elikae have the ability to control someone’s dreams? Evzynn wouldn’t do this. He knew that for sure. He had no reason whatsoever to do so.

He hoisted himself up onto the counter and sat there for a few minutes until Phil walked in. His hair was messy and the creases of the pillow were imprinted in his cheek, “You sleep well? You know, besides the nightmares?” He asked.  
Dan shrugged, “I slept fine. Thanks for waking me up when I had a nightmare.”  
“No problem. Have you had breakfast yet?”  
“No.”  
“Why not?”  
“I’m not hungry.”  
“That’s rubbish. Are you feeling ill?”  
“No, really. I’m fine. I’m just not hungry.”  
“You’re still thinking about your nightmares, aren’t you?”  
Dan sighed, “I hate that you can read it off my face.”

“I’ve had to learn to for occasions like this, when you won’t tell me what’s going on, but I need to know anyway.” He hopped up on the counter next to Dan. “So you want to tell me what about the nightmares is bothering you?”  
“I don’t know what it is. It’s just that Evzynn disappeared and then Erazniel got himself killed. I don’t know what it means and if it even means anything.”  
“Why were you calling my name?”  
“Like out loud?”  
“Yeah. That’s the reason I came to your room in the first place.”  
“Probably because in my dream I lost you.”  
“Well, good thing I’m not actually leaving you.”  
Dan grinned, “You better not.”

One moment they were sitting on the counter together and Dan was just starting to recover from his nightmares, and the next moment there was a giant guy standing in front of them. About seven feet tall, quite stocky, and an annoyed expression on his face.  
Dan immediately glanced over at Phil. Was he seeing this? Was this an Elik? Of course he was an Elik, humans couldn’t randomly show up in his kitchen. But Phil’s face told him that he was seeing it too.  
“Hey boys.” The man tilted his head to the side, “My name is Ean. I’m one of the first ever Elikae.”  
An immortal one. Probably from the government.  
“Do you think we’re stupid?”  
“Excuse me?” Dan asked.  
“Do you think we’re stupid, kid? We have eyes and ears everywhere. You cannot lock us in The Ifarn. I’m warning you two, we’ve got our eyes on you. Don’t make a move.”  
“Is that a threat?”  
“You must be the brightest kid around. Yes, that is a threat. Mind your own business, because we’ve been nice to you so far, but we can’t keep that up if you don’t keep your head low.”  
“If you go back to The Ifarn you won’t have anything to do with us anymore.” Phil argued.  
“We cannot go back to The Ifarn. We possess the earth. You’ve got nothing on us.” He gave them a mean look and raised his voice when he repeated: “Nothing.”

“So you will kill us if we do send you back?” Dan asked, his voice sounded daring and he knew Phil would have punched him in the arm if he hadn’t been so scared. Dan was way past being scared; maybe he wouldn’t make it, in the long run his life would be insignificant anyway. As long as his death contributed to the freedom of the humans he was ready to die for it. But Phil’s life was more important to him. He didn’t want to get Phil killed over something that was his fault, so maybe if he was the one to piss this guy off, they would kill him but leave Phil alone. It sounded like the second best option, after killing Ean and fulfilling their plan by sending every Elik back to The Ifarn.  
“I’m just here to tell you that if you continue this foolish plan, it won’t end well.”

He disappeared. Dan and Phil gave each other a look. Both were thinking the same thing, and they knew it. Dan spoke up, just to make sure that him and Phil were on the same page, “We’re going through with it, right?”  
Phil grinned, “Of course we are. Maybe we’ll die for it, maybe we won’t. We’ll see.”  
“Should we inform Evzynn and Erazniel?”  
“We probably should, but aren’t they busy ordering other Elikae to get some kind of plan going?”  
Dan shrugged, “Evzynn told me a few months ago that if an Elik approached me I had to tell him immediately. I think this is what he meant.”  
“Why could I see him too, anyway?”  
“He told us he was one of the first Elikae, so he’s immortal. The immortal ones are usually in the government and aren’t coupled up with humans. I didn’t know they could appear to humans, but apparently they can.”  
“So, we’re about to start a war with an other species and we’re in life threatening danger. Nice. Do you want breakfast now?”  
“Love some.”

The two boys were both spread out on the floor in front of their television. The two characters on the screen were crouching behind a rock on a mountain, and they were looking at an army, that had gathered beneath the mountain.  
“Daniel.”  
Dan let out a shriek and turned over onto his back. He instinctively knew it was Evzynn, but the Elik had scared him to death. Phil paused the game and looked to Dan, “Is Evzynn there?”  
“Yeah.” Dan breathed.  
“I heard you called me.”  
“Did I?”  
“I can hear when you speak about me.”  
“Fascinating. And yes, we did speak about you. Some Elik named Ean visited us this morning. He told us that if we don’t drop the plan, he’ll kill us.”  
“Are you sure his name was Ean?”  
“Fairly sure, yes. Phil could see and hear him too. Is he an immortal one?”  
“He’s quite high up on the chain. I didn’t expect him to actively get involved in this matter. He is indeed an immortal one. Phil could see him because the immortal ones can choose to let humans see and hear them. Do you want to blow it all off?”  
Dan let out a humourless laugh, “Never in a million years. No. We’re going through with it. The humans deserve to be free. So have you found any options for us yet?”  
“Not yet, but we’ve put some of our best Elikae on it and Erazniel is still looking for some. They’re all willing to help, we’re doing well.”

“Any ideas on how to handle Ean?”  
“We could kill him, but he’d just be sent back to The Ifarn and come back to us even angrier. We don’t know how to permanently kill immortals. I’ll ask some of my friends to look for ways to kill immortals. You have to realise though, that we are not used to revolutions and we have no idea how this is going to work. We’re all doing the best we can, but don’t expect the supernatural from us.”  
“It’s okay. We’re all trying. I guess we’ll see where it gets us.”  
“Good. You two stay low until I get back to you, understood? Don’t leave the flat. Just order pizza and play videogames or something, I don’t care what you do as long as you don’t attract any attention to yourselves.”  
“Got it. Thank you.”  
“Is he gone?” Phil asked.  
Dan nodded.  
“What’s the word?”  
“Erazniel and him are working on getting others to look for ways to accomplish our goal. They don’t actually know how to permanently kill immortals, so Evzynn is having some Elikae look into that as well. Ean is a high guy in the government and according to Evzynn he doesn’t go out into the field very often. We have gotten orders to not leave our flat and stay low.”  
“That shouldn’t be too hard. That’s basically what we’ve been doing for multiple years. Now let’s get back to our game, there isn’t much else we can do right now.”  
Dan rolled back onto his stomach and picked up his controller, scanning their characters’ situation behind the rock, “If we just attack them from the back they won’t notice that we’re there until it’s too late.”  
“Okay, stay behind me.”

Two days of pizza, videogames, and not doing anything at all later, Erazniel showed up behind Dan, as Dan was pouring juice for himself and Phil. Dan spotted him in the reflection of the glass he was holding. It took him a fraction of a second to realise it was Erazniel, and he managed to not react like a scared horse.  
“How have you been?” Erazniel asked him.  
Dan turned around and gave him a confused look, “Who cares? Let’s get on to the important question: How have you been doing?”  
Erazniel nodded at him, “I’ve been doing okay. We’re organising a resistance movement. The only problem is that a lot of Elikae have gotten attached to their humans. We’re using the argument: ‘You don’t want to have your children go through being with someone who doesn’t know they exist for their entire lives’. More and more Elikae are being added every day. The government is catching on though, so you are still not allowed to leave the house. You’ve confirmed to Ean that you are involved in this plan, so you cannot pretend to be innocent when they come question you.”  
“Sorry.”

“It’s okay. It’s good for the others to have a human as the resistance symbol. Makes them feel united with the humans instead of just with each other. Evzynn has ordered some of the Elikae in the resistance movement to look for ways to permanently kill an immortal. We are not yet sure as to how we could pull this off. Normal Elikae die the way humans do; either of natural causes when they’re of old age, illnesses, or by getting killed. If you try to kill an immortal Elik just by slitting their throat or something, they’ll just disappear and reappear in The Ifarn. So they’ll just come back ready to murder your entire family. We’re planning on laying low until we find a way to permanently kill immortals, so that we don’t get caught up in an unfair fight between mortals and immortals.”  
“So you’re basically looking for a way to kill immortals?”  
“It sounds a lot less logical when you say it like that, but yes, we are.”  
“Roughly how many Elikae are involved in this resistance movement?”  
“About two million.”  
“I beg your pardon?”  
“About two million.” Erazniel smiled at him, “I told you we were doing well. And by just having one government we also have one language and stuff like this spreads like wildfire. It’s great, really. I think that was it, I was just here to update you. Where’s Phil?”  
“Living room.” Dan replied.  
“Tell him what I just told you, okay?”

Dan was just about to nod, when he spotted the man standing beside the Elik in front of him. The man hovered over Erazniel and seeing by the way Erazniel’s ears shot up and his eyes went out of focus he had noticed its presence too.  
Ean.  
“Erazniel, I was hoping I’d find you here. I knew you’d be involved in this. Sad, really. You had so much potential.”  
“I still do,” Erazniel replied without turning around to face Ean, “I’m just using it in ways you don’t agree with. And I’m sorry to disappoint, but you’re going to lose.”  
Ean laughed humourlessly, “I’d love to see you try to take down the government, I really would. Every since you became friends with this kid you feel better than the rest of your mortals.”  
“You mean I’m starting to become like all of you immortals? Never. I don’t feel better than anyone else. I just feel like you are less than us.”  
“Us as in you, Evzynn, and your humans?”  
“No. Us as in the mortals. You immortals all think you’re the best and you know what, I think you’re a bunch of pathetic little kids, desperately trying to gain as much power as you can. Just like five year old nagging children. I look down on you, Ean, are you only just seeing that now?”  
“Move.” Ean ordered.  
“What for?”  
“I said move.”  
“I’m not moving just because you want me to.”  
“Give up your stupid little resistance and get out my way.” He raised his large hands and pushed Erazniel to the side. Erazniel could put up a fight all he wanted, but Ean was ginormous; he didn’t stand a change on his own.

Dan saw it coming. The hands came closer and closer to his throat and Ean had him backed up inbetween his body and the kitchen counter. Dan was torn between wanting to call out to Phil for help and leaving Phil out of this. Maybe if he let Ean kill him Phil would be left alone. But he didn’t get to choose. Phil came into the kitchen, Evzynn by his side. Dan felt Ean’s cold hands wrap around his throat. He had nowhere to go. Could only let it happen and hope that it would be over quickly. Would they keep the resistance going if he wasn’t there to convince Evzynn and Erazniel that it was worth it? Was the freedom of the humans worth enough to them to continue?  
His body was fighting for air, he felt himself struggle against the iron grip on his throat, even though he didn’t want to put up a fight. He stood no chance and he’d only make it worse for himself. The pressure on his throat was blacking out every other feeling and the only thing he could focus on was oxygen. He’d taken breathing for granted all his life, and now that he could finally appreciate it, he was going to die.  
Small lights danced in front of his eyes. He had a hard time trying to make out Ean’s face amongst the lights taking up his vision. For a split second he could only see light. Then everything went black.


	19. Chapter 19

He could still feel the hands around his neck when he regained consciousness. He could feel his heart beating in his entire body, and everything hurt. But he was alive. He was still alive.

He heard a static noise, like a television with no signal. The noise was taking up all of his senses. But among the noise he could suddenly pick up a clear voice, “He’s awake.”  
Phil.  
He tried raising his arm. For some reason the thought of opening his eyes didn’t even occur to him. His arm wouldn’t move, but he could feel his fingers move against his side.  
“Dan, can you hear me? Evzynn and Erazniel are here.”  
How could Phil know?  
Open your eyes.

Dan tried, he really did, but he couldn’t do it. His head was heavy and something inside of it was pounding against his skull. He tried speaking, but could only produce a small croaky noise. But at least it was something. At least he had a way of acknowledging that he could hear and understand Phil’s words.  
“Take it slow, it’s okay. Can you try opening your eyes for me?”  
Dan tried again. His eyelids resisted, but he forced them open. The light in the room nearly blinded him, but he didn’t dare closing his eyes, afraid of not being able to open them again.  
“Hey there.” He could make out Phil’s face in the sea of light.  
He opened his mouth, “Hi.” It came out hoarse and croaky and way too high pitched, but he couldn’t care less. He’d nearly been strangled, a croaky voice was the least of his worries right now.  
“What the hell happened?” He managed to choke out.  
“Well, Ean nearly strangled you. But then I walked in. And apparently Evzynn and a bunch of other Elikae were with me and they pulled Ean off you. You had already blacked out, but you still had a pulse. You owe your life to these Elikae whose names I don’t even know.”

“Can you help me up?” Dan asked.  
“Sit up or stand up?”  
“Sit up.”  
“Alright.” Phil grabbed his shoulders and slowly pulled him into a sitting position, “You good?” He asked before letting go.  
Dan rubbed his eyes. Evzynn standing behind Phil, and Erazniel was sat on the sofa.  
“How are you feeling? Are you nauseous? Dizzy?”  
Dan shook his head, “Bit of a headache. My throat hurts as well.”  
“The headache is because of the lack of oxygen, it should cease soon enough. As for your throat; you almost got strangled to death, of course your throat hurts.”  
“Can you get me a glass of water or something?”  
Phil reached beside him and held up a glass, “One step ahead of you on that one.”

Dan took the glass from Phil and took tiny sips of the cool liquid. “Where is he?” He asked when he’d finished the water.  
“Who?”  
“Ean.”  
“I don’t know. He got pulled off you and then just disappeared. Where are Evzynn and Erazniel?”

Dan waved his hand in the direction of the two Elikae. Just when he was about to open his mouth and say something to Evzynn, the Elik suddenly turned around and started speaking to seemingly nothing in that language that Dan didn’t understand. He couldn’t see Evzynn’s face, but he could see Erazniel’s, and his was lighting up more with every word being said.  
Erazniel got up from the couch and smiled broadly, he turned to face the same Elik Evzynn was looking at.  
“What is it?” Phil asked.  
“They’re speaking to an Elik I can’t see.”  
“What are they saying?”  
“I don’t know, I don’t understand the language they’re speaking. I can only understand my own and my soul mate’s Elik, remember?”  
“But are Evzynn and Erazniel not speaking?”  
“Yes they are, but they’re not speaking to someone I can see, so I can’t understand what they’re saying either.”  
“Annoying.” Phil stated.

Dan rolled his eyes at him, he’d gotten used to not understanding people who were having a conversation right in front of him. He was used to not getting every bit of information, and given the fact that he himself was the one telling Phil whatever was being said, Phil probably knew what it was like too.  
“Are you feeling okay? Do you think you can stand up?”  
“Yeah, water did me well. Can you help me to stand up?”  
“Sure.” Phil got up and offered him his hand to take. Dan let Phil pull him up.

As soon as Erazniel noticed that he’d gotten up he turned around, “Dan.” He exclaimed.  
“Erazniel.” Dan replied.  
“This is Eviza,” Erazniel said, “You can’t see her, but you might want to appreciate her anyway as she just provided us with a plan as to how to kill Ean. Permanently.”  
“Really?”  
“Yeah. Well, we don’t actually know how to literally kill them.”  
“I have no idea what you’re trying to say to me.” Dan admitted.  
“Beheading them,” Erazniel explained, “It won’t kill them, but if you keep their head away from their body they won’t be able to heal themselves. They’d be as good as dead. But if we have to believe this theory, we’ll also have to believe that in The Ifarn immortals are immune against everything. So we’ll have to do it on earth. Meaning we’ll have to wait till he comes to attack you or Phil again, as he never leaves The Ifarn for any other reason.”  
“Phil and me will function as bait?”  
“Basically, yes. Are you in?”  
Dan turned to face Phil and quickly explained what their choice was.  
Phil shrugged and gave Dan a hopeless grin, “We’re in over our heads now, we can’t back down.”  
Dan ruffled his hair and turned back to Erazniel, “We’re in.”

But Ean didn’t show up in the next few days. Dan and Phil lived in constant fear that they would get attacked whilst sleeping or in the shower, and as they were both scared that the other would get attacked when they weren’t with them, they spent all their time together.  
They’d considered carrying Phil’s mattress to Dan’s room, but had decided against it after agreeing that that would take a hell of a lot of effort. It wasn’t like they hadn’t shared a bed before anyway, the step from sleeping in the same bed because of a lack of better options to sleeping in the same bed because they were afraid to leave each other wasn’t that big.  
If Dan had to be honest with himself, he’d say that he preferred sleeping with someone next to him over sleeping alone. He liked falling asleep to the sound of Phil’s steady breathing, felt safer when there was someone next to him. It also stopped him from pacing around his room until dawn, like he usually did.  
He had developed a habit of over thinking, usually in the middle of the night, when he was supposed to be asleep. Phil didn’t know, and he was planning on keeping him in the dark about it. He knew the older boy would worry about him if he found out.

They didn’t dare leave the house, so they had food delivered every day. Every time the doorbell rang, they both jumped and took a deep breath before opening the door, expecting to find Ean on the other side of the barrier, ready to kill them both.  
They were left to worry about everything and nothing for a little over two weeks, before Ean finally showed up again. Dan was spread out on the couch, fast asleep, but was woken up by Phil swatting his legs off the couch in his hurry to get up. The rest of Dan’s body followed after his legs, and he rolled off the couch in his half asleep state.  
As soon as his half open eyes spotted the tall figure standing in the middle of the room he was roughly woken up from his peaceful slumber. His flight or fight instinct kicked in, making him hoist himself up to his feet.

Could Evzynn hear him call when he was just thinking his name over and over? Dan sure hoped so, as he was too scared to open his mouth and actually say the word out loud right now. Phil glanced over at him, as if to ask him if he was okay. But honestly, Dan didn’t know if he was okay, and he didn’t really care either. He didn’t have time to care about himself now.  
Ean had to die.  
If there had been a less violent way to make things work he’d definitely done that, but there wasn’t one, so they had to go with this one. And after what Ean had done to him, he hardly minded the idea of him dying. He hated to think that he deserved it, but he did. He’d tried to kill him. It still hadn’t really dawned on him that he would have actually died if Phil and those Elikae hadn’t showed up.  
He saw movements from the corner of his eye, and immediately recognised the white shirt.  
Evzynn.  
Evzynn was there.

It would all be alright, Evzynn was there. Upon quickly looking over he realised that it wasn’t just Evzynn; Erazniel was there too. There were more, Dan didn’t doubt it.  
He found it annoying that he couldn’t see all of them, but of course, to Phil it looked like it was just him and Dan against this giant guy.  
“They’re here.” Dan assured him.  
Phil nodded, but didn’t take his eyes of Ean. Maybe he was afraid that if he stopped looking at him it would take him.  
“Leave.” Erazniel ordered, giving Dan a resolute look. The tone of his voice told Dan that this wasn’t up for discussion, so he grabbed Phil’s upper arm and pulled him out of the lounge, into the hallway. Phil didn’t struggle, but let Dan pull him into his bedroom.

“Why did we leave?” He asked.  
“Erazniel told me to.”  
Phil sat down on his bed, “I don’t want to hear it.” He said.  
Dan sat down next to him and looked at him tiredly, “Me neither, but we don’t have a choice. I’m glad we don’t have to be in the room with them when it happens. I’d say I would’ve gladly decapitated him myself, but then again, if it really came to it I’d probably chicken out.”  
“It’s not called chickening out, it’s called not being a murderer.”  
“Evzynn and Erazniel aren’t murderers either.”  
Phil shrugged, “Just admit it, Dan, you’re too soft to hurt anyone.”  
Dan let out a nervous laugh, “Thanks.” He said.

They tried their best not to listen to the sounds coming from the other room.  
The action was all happening in the lounge, and although Dan would like to think that he’d be brave enough to be there and to be a part of the fight, he knew that he would be too scared to function and would probably just end up crying.  
They sat on Phil’s bed, motionless, whilst wordlessly communicating without looking at each other. They were thinking the exact same thing. Dan pulled his legs up to his chest and rested his chin on his knees. “Your life would’ve been so much easier if it hadn’t been for me.”  
“It would have,” Phil agreed, “But I’d also live my life lacking a best friend.” He looked over at Dan and smiled, “A soul mate, I’m sorry.” He corrected himself and laughed softly.  
Dan rubbed his eyes, “Do you think they’ll make it? What if Ean kills them and then comes for us?”  
“There’s nothing we can do. I know we like to think that we have the power to fix everything, but we just don’t. We can’t do anything to help; we can only stay here and wait for someone to come and get us. Erazniel sent us here, remember? We can only hope that the person to come get us is on our side.”  
Dan didn’t reply.

Both their heads shot up when they heard the door to the lounge open. The entire flat was awfully silent and the slow creaking of the door made their hearts jump. Dan could hear the soft footsteps that were being muffled by the thick carpet in the hallway. The carpet made it hard to hear if the owner of the footsteps was heavy or light, so Dan was left to speculate over who’d won the struggle. “Who do you think it is?” He whispered.  
“Where have they gone? I can’t hear them anymore.”  
“You can’t hear the footsteps?”  
“What? No.”  
Dan’s face lit up, he heard the door of Phil’s room open but he wasn’t scared anymore. If Phil couldn’t hear the footsteps that meant that he couldn’t see the owner. He could see Ean, but he couldn’t see Evzynn or Erazniel.  
“Is anyone there?” Phil asked.  
Dan looked over at the door, Evzynn was stood in the doorway, content grin decorating his pale face. “We did it.” He said.  
“Is everyone alright?”  
“Everyone except for Ean. Erazniel and the rest are currently debating how to keep his head and body seperated.”  
“How many more are there?”  
“About eight.” Evzynn replied, “One of them got knocked out, but she’s still got a pulse. Someone else is bringing her back to The Ifarn to get her checked up. She’ll be just fine.”

“Do you think they’ll call someone else on us? I mean the government?”  
“They probably will,” Evzynn admitted, “But not for a while. If we do this quick they won’t notice that Ean is dead until we’ve sent everyone back to The Ifarn.”  
“So we have to hurry.” Dan stated.  
“We definitely do. But for now let’s just enjoy the moment and be happy. I estimate that we’ve got about a week before they notice that something’s off. Time for celebrations.”  
Dan glanced over at Phil, “Ean’s dead, one Elik got knocked out but she’ll be fine, and Erazniel thinks they’ll call someone else on us within a week. But we can go celebrate now.”  
“How about we go out for dinner?” Phil suggested.  
Dan was eager to agree; after all he hadn’t been outside for over two weeks. “Nando’s?”  
Phil nodded, “Let me just get dressed. Can you go check up on the Elikae in the living room?”  
“Sure thing.” Dan followed Evzynn out to the lounge and found Erazniel speaking to some Elikae he couldn’t see. Erazniel turned around when he heard Dan come in, “Hey Daniel, are you okay?”  
“I haven’t done anything. How are you all?”  
“We’re all fine. Ready to raise a little hell.” He grinned, “We’ve just agreed on who is taking the head and who is taking the body. We’re going to keep them as far away from each other as we can and we should be okay that way. We might bury them somewhere here on earth, we’re not sure if that’ll work yet.”  
“Where are the head and the body now?”  
“They’re right here. You can’t see them because he can’t consciously choose to let humans see him when he’s half dead.”  
“Good point.” Dan replied, “Is it okay if Phil and me go out for dinner to Nando’s tonight? Just to celebrate that we got Ean off our asses?”  
“Yeah, you go right ahead. Bliss, remember? When Phil’s happy, I’m happy.”

“This is some mighty good chicken.” Dan praised.  
Phil laughed and kicked him under the table, “It’s better when I make it.”  
“Yeah, but it’s still nice. And it doesn’t involve you having to go through the trouble of actually frying the chicken. Plus I don’t have to do the dishes afterwards, which is a major bonus.”

Before Phil could reply, he was grabbing his phone out of his pocket and putting it to his ear. Dan gave him a strange look and opened his mouth, but Phil motioned for him to shut up.  
“Yes, that’s me.”  
“Definitely.”  
“I’d have to talk about it with Dan, but I think he’ll be okay with it.”  
“Are you serious? No way!”  
“Yes, of course. I mean, again, I’ll have to talk about it with Dan, but he’ll agree.”  
“Yes, totally. Yeah, he’s here with me.”  
“Okay. Yes, I’ll call you back.”  
“Alright, goodbye, have a nice day.”  
Phil put his phone down on the table and Dan looked at him, willing for him to speak.

“Guess who just called me?”  
“The only people to ever call you are me and your mum. That sounded like someone was offering you a job, so I’m going to say it wasn’t your mum. And as I’m sitting right here-… Okay, I don’t care. Just tell me already.”  
“The BBC. They’re offering us another Christmas radio show and, wait for it…” He smiled broadly before continuing, “A weekly radio show in 2013.”  
“Are you actually serious? You’re kidding.”  
“I’m not kidding at all. They want us to do a two hour radio show every Sunday night. We could become actual radio DJ’s.”  
“Well, why didn’t you tell them we’re taking the job?”  
“Because that’s unprofessional, obviously. We have to let them think that we’re busy doing stuff and that we’re taking their offer into consideration.”  
“We’ve had a minute to consider it already. I’m going to guess that you really want to do this, and I do too. So what are you waiting for?”  
“I’ll call them back after dinner. Don’t want to seem too eager.”  
“You’re so pretentious.”  
“Am not.”  
“Are too.”  
“Am not.”


	20. Chapter 20

The week went by way too quick for Dan’s liking. Everyday he woke up hoping for news from the Elikae, and everyday he went to bed disappointed and even more scared than the day before. The week they’d been given by Erazniel was just an estimation, maybe they’d find out sooner, maybe later. The constant threat didn’t make their life any easier.  
The two boys found themselves getting constantly annoyed with each other over small things, just because they were both exhausted. So tired of being scared and being tense all the time. Being ready to put up a fight 24/7 required a lot of energy and it had drained them both. One minute could find them yelling at each other over a small thing, whilst the next would find them sat on the couch watching Buffy The Vampire Slayer together.

Every time Phil raised his voice to him he knew he didn’t mean it, that neither of them meant it. And although at the time Phil may seem like the most annoying human currently on the planet, he didn’t directly insult him. It was some kind of unspoken of agreement; they were both tired and worn out so they could yell at each other to let off some steam, but they were not to actually hurt the other. So they kept nagging on about the small thing that had set them off, until they had both used up the remaining energy and had a drink together or fell asleep. They did that a lot in that week, falling asleep together. They’d sit on the couch and just fall asleep on each other’s shoulders out of nowhere or they’d fall asleep in the middle of a movie or a videogame.  
They fell into a routine of waking up, having breakfast, sitting in the lounge, yelling at each other, forgetting to eat for the rest of the day, and then falling asleep on each other. It would have been an almost pleasant routine for Dan if hadn’t been for the constant fear of getting killed. The routine was a lot like the one they used to have at Phil’s flat and at their shared flat in Manchester; except they’d forget to eat for entirely different reasons.

When the two Elikae showed up in their living room on the sixth day, they were almost relieved. At least the tension would be over now. Dan was hesitant to call Evzynn in; his foggy, tired mind was playing tricks on him, telling him that dying wouldn’t even be that bad. The reason he did decide to call out to Evzynn was because he realised that if he let himself die, Phil would die too. Phil was completely dependent on him in this case; if he didn’t get help, they would get murdered.

“Well, well. If that isn’t the lucky two.” One of the Elikae spoke. “The name is Er. A little birdie told me that you murdered my cousin.”  
Dan was torn between denying it, as it was technically not true, and telling them that he did indeed kill Ean, but instead he said nothing. Phil however, seemed to take the lead this time, and spoke up so that Dan didn’t have to. “Yeah, we might have kind of beheaded him. That was quite the happening.”  
Dan chanted Evzynn’s name over and over again in his head.

“It seems you’ve gotten yourself a resistance army up in The Ifarn. Do you even know what you’re doing to our community? You’re ruining everything.”  
“We’re just doing what you’ve been doing to the humans for over 2000 years; messing with your minds.”  
“So you’re saying you’re tricking all these Elikae into thinking that you’re on their side, even though you’re actually just in this for your own selfish needs?”  
“No. We’re definitely on their side. By ‘messing with your minds’ I meant with you lot, not the ones in the Army. The immortal ones are the enemy, not the mortals.”  
“You see us as your enemy, Philip? That’s what this is about? You’re using our people against us because you think we are your enemy?”  
“You are our enemy because you are against our people.” Dan spoke up.  
“We’re just trying to make the majority of the people involved happy, and you happen to be on the side of the minority. Sorry about that.” Phil said.  
“Though if there are any immortals out there on our side, they should definitely feel free to join the army. The immortals aren’t strictly our enemy, it’s just that the stereotypical villain in this story happens to be part of your group.”  
“You are being broadcasted on live Juke.”  
“I have no idea what that is, but good on you, mate. Good on you.”  
“Everyone can see this. All the Elikae.”  
“Good. So they now know that if they want to be on our side, they are free to join us. If they are not on our side, however, I shall take the sad duty upon me to tell them that they are not going to get what they want. I’m sorry. The Army will claim the victory.”  
“Nice show.” Evzynn showed up out of nowhere, as always. “Sorry I’m late. Had to collect some friends. But I’m here now. Didn’t miss the good part, did I?”  
“We’re only just getting started.” The immortal next to Er said with a smug grin plastered on her face.  
“How many are there?” Dan whispered to Evzynn.  
Evzynn grinned and glanced over at him, “Oh, you know, about thirty. Not including the few dozen ready to jump in at any given moment.”

Dan felt a quick smile cross his face, “We’re good.” He said softly, turning to Phil.  
“Well Daniel, I wouldn’t say you’re good. You’re not good at all. See, we’re kind of immortal, in case you hadn’t figured that out yet.” The woman said.  
“Yeah, that’s what Ean said too,” He paused for a moment, “Before we killed him. You’re just as mortal as everyone else, you just have to know where to hit.”

Dan glanced over his shoulder. He could only see Erazniel standing behind him. Behind Evzynn was another familiar face. It took him a second before it hit him: Elti. That was his mum’s Elik. He was strongly opposed to the whole ‘Elikae can control humans’ choices’ thing, but he still felt an urge to protect his mum’s Elik. His mum wouldn’t miss him, but they still kind of belonged together in Dan’s mind. He didn’t understand it himself; all he knew was that he had to get Elti away from here before he got mixed up in the fight that was undoubtedly going to take place here.  
Er and the woman pulled out a shiny silver knife at the exact same time. Dan’s eyes followed their movements.

“Get your arms.” Evzynn ordered.  
Dan could only hear Elti, Erazniel and Evzynn pulling their knifes, but he knew that the others were pulling theirs too. Everyone else here could see each other, he realised. It was just him and Phil who couldn’t see them. There were over thirty of them, there was no doubt in his mind that he was going to accidentally trip at least one of them just by standing in their way.  
“Get back.” Evzynn said, he put his hand on Dan’s shoulder and pulled him backwards, “Take Phil with you.”

Dan grabbed Phil’s arm, but before they could make their way back, Er was launching his knife at him. Phil pulled Dan onto the floor in a reflex and Dan fell flat on his stomach. Phil was squatting next to him, shielding the younger boy from the fight going on above their heads. “Come with me.” Phil said, his stern face not one to argue with.  
The two of them crawled to the back of the room, where they sat with their backs against the wall, observing the fight. They both wished they could do something to help, but given the fact that they couldn’t see the majority of their allies, that probably wasn’t a good idea. The fight made for a peculiar scene. Dan could see Er and the woman stabbing at things that weren’t there in his eyes, and he knew that it was even weirder for Phil, who could only see Er and the woman. Erazniel, Evzynn and Elti were trying to get to the two immortals, but they were being fought off. Whenever a knife was jammed inside their bodies the wounds simply healed immediately, as if nothing ever happened.

Beheading them and keeping their heads away from their bodies really was the only way of stopping them from putting down more of the mortal Elikae.  
Dan was afraid that he was sitting near dead bodies he couldn’t see, but he didn’t want to leave the room; he would feel like too much of a coward leaving the room whilst he wasn’t even fighting.  
They could see Er making his way through the invisible crowd, coming closer and closer. They didn’t have a weapon, they couldn’t do anything against an immortal guy with a silver blade.  
The man lifted his arm, raising the knife above his head. Dan held his arms in front of his face, knowing it would make no difference once the knife was actually placed in his body. Could he put up a fight? Would it do any good or would it just make his death even more slow and painful? He didn’t get a chance to think about it. The knife was coming down at him and in his mind he’d already kissed his parents goodbye by the time Phil suddenly launched a kick at the guy’s shins. Er stepped aside out of reflex, which gave Dan the opportunity to jump up and start a fight with him over the knife. Dan felt the tip of the silver blade run over the back of his lower arm and felt the blood starting to flow out of the new cut.

They weren’t alone anymore, Er and the woman. They’d gotten company from five other immortals, who were battling the mortals in the middle of the lounge.  
In the middle of his struggle with Er over the knife, the Elik suddenly started laughing, “You know what, kid? I could just go invisible on you. But that wouldn’t be fair, would it? You’re already weaker than I am. Killing you when you can’t even see me would almost be cowardly. Be grateful, Daniel, for I am merciful.”

Phil, however, wasn’t as merciful. He attacked Er in the middle of his heartfelt speech, by grabbing the arm that was holding the knife and starting to twist it. The adrenaline rushed through Dan’s body and it made it hard to think clearly. He didn’t have the time to create peace in his mind, so he decided to go with his instincts: he started kicking at Er’s crotch.  
“Below the belt? You coward.” Er exclaimed. He pulled his arm out of Phil’s grip and launched his fist at Dan’s face. Dan managed to dodge out of reach and whilst Er was regaining balance after missing Dan’s face by an inch, and Phil took advantage of the moment by giving him a rough shove. In his attempt to stay upright Er tried to stab Dan in the stomach, but Dan grabbed his wrist and tried to pry the knife out of his fist.

More immortals appeared.

It started to feel like an endless battle leading nowhere but to their deaths. The blade cut open the palm of Dan’s hand and Dan winced in pain as he pulled his hand back. Er suddenly got pulled backwards by an Elik Dan couldn’t see, but before Dan could even feel a sense of euphoria, Er elbowed his attacked in the face and was left alone.  
Dan was just in time to catch a glimpse of one of the immortals falling to the ground. One down, about eleven to go. Er pressed him up against the wall unexpectedly. With the elbow of his free hand the Elik pushed Phil away. Dan could feel the knife hovering over his stomach, felt the tip of it lightly press against the skin just above his bellybutton. With a devilish grin on his face Er slowly applied more pressure. Dan gritted his teeth and tried to pull the man off him, but to no avail. “So, do you want this to be quick and easy, or slow and hard? Because you know, I’m up for taking the long road there.”  
Dan groaned. The knife had broken through the first layers of skin and the pathetic thought that it had ruined his shirt crossed his mind. He wanted to scream, but somehow felt like that would be inappropriate. Everyone was fighting. It wasn’t all about him. This was his battle and he had to take it like a man.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see that Phil had started taking on an other immortal. He had to finish this quickly, he realised. He didn’t want Phil to get hurt because of him. He wriggled his bloodstained arm between their bodies and with all the power he had left he started to push Er away from him. The knife sank into his flesh a bit further, but he ignored the stinging pain in his abdomen. “Are you done playing yet, Daniel? Are you ready to give up?”

Dan didn’t reply, but managed to raise his other arm and put it in between their bodies as well. It didn’t seem to do much good, but at least it kept the Elik from focusing on the blade in his hand. “What are you even trying for? You don’t seem to value your life that much anyway. Why not let go of it? It’ll be over and you won’t have to be a part of this battle that isn’t even yours anymore.”  
“It is my battle now.” Dan uttered.  
“Oh wait, this isn’t about you, is it? Is this about Evzynn and Erazniel?” Er squinted his eyes and titled his head to the side thoughtfully. Dan could feel the knife still it’s movement and he let out a relieved breath. “No, no. That’s not it. Is it Philip? Is this for him?”  
“He wasn’t supposed to get involved in this.” Dan said. He had now pushed Er far enough away from him to be able to move his legs a bit, which he gladly took advantage of. He looked Er straight in the eyes, and as he felt the knife picking up where it had left off, he kneed Er in the groin.

The short moment of confusion was enough for Dan to completely push Er off him, and he managed to wriggle the knife out of his hand. He didn’t get a chance to think about what he was going to do. Without a second thought he slit the man’s throat. Er stumbled to the ground and Dan fell on his knees next to him. The wound was already starting to heal, so he had to hurry. He repressed the urge to be sick, and beheaded the man with a few movements of the blade. He knew he was going to disappear as soon as Er no longer had the ability to decide if he wanted to show himself, so Dan grabbed the head, saw it go invisible in his hands, and kicked it to the other side of the room.

He didn’t give himself a moment to think about what he’d just done; he immediately got himself involved in Phil’s fight.  
Phil was lying on his back on the floor. The Elik was straddling his hips and was holding a knife to his throat. The only thing in between Phil and a slit throat where his arms, that were bravely holding the arms of the Elik away from him. Blood trickled down Phil’s neck, but he didn’t seem to notice. With Er’s blade in his hand Dan jumped on the Elik. The latter landed on his back, and Dan jammed the knife into his throat without hesitation. Phil seemed shocked by Dan’s actions, he probably didn’t expect him to be capable of actually killing someone.  
“You’re too soft to hurt anyone.” He could still recall Phil’s words from over a month ago. Apparently he wasn’t.

When Dan had kicked the Elik’s head into the same corner as Er’s, he started looking for Elti, Evzynn and Erazniel. He found them all in the middle of a fight with two immortals. Dan was tired, but he couldn’t allow himself to weaken in the middle of this all. “Get to your bedroom.” He told Phil. But to his surprise Phil let out a joyless laugh in reply, bent down, and grabbed the silver blade from the dead Elik’s hand. “I’m not leaving you here on your own. It’s neither of us or it’s both of us.”  
Dan hesitated for a moment and then nodded, “If you get yourself killed I’m kicking you out of the flat.”  
“Same goes for you.” Phil replied before they threw themselves back into the mess in their lounge.

Dan’s shirt was properly ruined now. There were tears in the fabric everywhere and every tear was stained with blood. Dan wasn’t even sure what was his blood and what wasn’t, but he was very sure that he was going to throw the shirt out after all of this.  
The lounge was clean in his eyes. He knew it was because he couldn’t see the bodies and he wasn’t sure if he should be happy or terrified.  
“How many dead?” He asked.  
“Thirteen immortals, four mortals.”  
“It’s my fault they’re dead.”  
“They chose to fight. They knew what they were getting themselves into.”  
“But if I hadn’t set up this whole thing they wouldn’t have gotten themselves into this.”  
“You should get changed.” Erazniel ignored Dan’s statement and turned around, “We’ll clean the mess up. Go on, go take a shower or something.”  
“Can’t I help?”  
“You can’t see anything, Dan. Just go take a shower. Please.” Erazniel gave him a pleading look and Dan nodded. “Let’s go.” He told Phil.

Phil followed him to their bathroom, and when he closed the door behind them Dan could finally take a look at the damage that had been done to his friend. His Pokémon T-shirt was torn and there were a few tears in his skinny jeans, but he physically didn’t seem that hurt.  
“You look like hell.” Phil stated.  
“Thanks.”  
“No, I’m serious. How many cuts do you have?”  
“Enough for a lifetime.” Dan replied as he pulled his shirt over his head. “I hope they quickly come up with a plan to banish all Elikae from earth, I’m kind of done with all of this.”  
“Any idea how many immortals there are?”  
“Thirteen less after tonight.” Dan started rummaging through their cupboards, looking for some kind of first aid kid even though he knew they didn’t have one.

“What’s bothering you?” Phil leaned against the shower.  
“I killed people and people were killed because of me. That’s what’s bothering me.”  
“Well, first of all: they weren’t good people. Second of all: they chose to fight. You didn’t make them do it. They knew what the consequences were and they came in anyway. Also you technically did not kill those immortals, they’re just permanently immobile.”  
“Thanks, Phil.” Dan had to repress a grin.  
“Any time. Should I clean the blood off your back or do you want to take a shower?”  
“I don’t fancy getting hot water in these cuts, to be honest.”

Phil grabbed a towel of the stack and wet it in the sink. “Turn around.”  
Dan turned his back to the older boy and dropped his head in order to give Phil more room. It stung, but he refused to give into the pain. People had died for this fight, the only thing he was left with were these cuts, the least he could do was deal with them without complaining.  
“It’s too late to back out now, isn’t it?” It was a rhetorical question, but Phil answered him anyway, “Yes. The fight has already begun and hopefully it will end soon.”  
“It’s the Battle of Hogwarts all over again.”  
“Except it’s not wizards but Elikae.”  
“Fair point.” He hissed in pain when Phil dabbed at a particularly deep cut between his shoulder blades.


	21. Chapter 21

Weeks went by without anyone bothering them. Dan and Phil got busy preparing for the Christmas radio and coming up with ideas for their new weekly radio show in 2013. Dan didn’t hear from Evzynn or Erazniel and he actually found time to relax a bit, even though he felt guilty every time he found himself playing videogames with Phil. Elikae had died because of him in a fight which he was now pausing from. He wasn’t doing anything to keep the fight that they’d given their lives for going. Every time he closed his eyes he saw people crying over their dead children, and he continued his habit of pacing around his room until dawn so that he was tired enough to fall asleep as soon as his head hit the cushion and he wouldn’t have time to contemplate the meaning of life and death anymore.

When Evzynn finally showed up he couldn’t do anything but hug him. Evzynn seemed surprised, but returned the hug anyway. “What was that for?” He questioned when Dan finally let go of him.

“I’ve been eating myself from the inside out. Please tell me there’s something I can do to contribute.”  
“Well no, not really. But there is a plan. We know how to send everyone back. I’ve got an other Elik with me, his name is Ebamus. He’s spent the past two months in the library and he’s found a way.”  
“Well, what are you waiting for? Tell me.”  
“It’s fairly simple, actually. We can definitely do it.”  
“Yes, okay. Go on.”  
“It just takes one person sacrificing themselves.”  
“That’s it? Just a sacrifice? No ancient chant? No summoning the devil?”  
“Nope. Just a sacrifice.”  
“Well, that’s settled then. When do I do it?”  
Evzynn let out a joyless laugh, “You can’t do it, Dan. It has to be an Elik. And not just any Elik, it has to be an Elik whose human has spoken to an Elik at least once.”

“That’s almost impossible.”  
“Correct. E didn’t expect any human to ever be able to see us, so the only Elikae they could possibly get in contact with would be immortals, as they can reveal themselves to humans if they want to. The trick is that Immortals are not assigned humans, so in theory the task would be impossible. But as you have broken all the laws and rules and both you and Phil have spoken to Elikae, the only two options are me and Erazniel.”  
“Erazniel.” Dan repeated, “Phil’s Elik.”  
“Yes. Phil has spoken to an immortal, remember? But I can’t let Eraz sacrifice himself. I can’t let him do that. So I’m going to do it. The only thing I have to do is voluntarily die whilst thinking of the cause. That’ll do the trick.”

Dan shook his head fiercely, “Why would you do that? You’d be dead. There wouldn’t be anything in it for you. What’s even in it for the Elikae anyway?”  
“Dan, almost all mortals are forced to live their lives through humans. They hardly have time to be with their spouses and children as they have to spend all their time with a human who cannot see or communicate with them. It’s a lonely life, you have to understand that. All these Elikae in the Army are fighting for a better future for the next generation. We just want our children to be able to live their own lives. For them to be happy for themselves and for them to spend time with their loved ones who can actually see them and talk to them.”  
“Okay, I understand that. But what’s in it for you? Why would you sacrifice yourself for this?”  
“Why is never a good question, Dan. You’ll never get the answer you want to hear.”

“But what’s in it for you?” Dan pressed.  
“It’s me or Erazniel.”  
“Have you spoken to Erazniel about this?”  
“What, would you rather see him die than me?”  
“That’s not what I’m saying, I don’t want either of you to die. I really don’t. But I do not believe that Erazniel is just okay with this. Where is he, anyway?”  
“The Ifarn. I didn’t tell him I was going here. He thinks we still don’t know who will sacrifice. He doesn’t know that I want to do it. I can’t let him die.”

“Can Elikae have soul mates?” Dan suddenly asked.  
Evzynn seemed caught of guard for a second, but he quickly recollected himself, “Yes. We can.”  
“Erazniel is your soul mate, isn’t he?”  
“Yes.” Evzynn admitted.  
“But not platonically.”  
Evzynn ran a hand through his hair, “No, not platonically.”  
“Why didn’t you tell me?”  
“Because I’d already told you that the humans of Elikae who are together usually fall in love too. I didn’t want to make things awkward between you and Phil.”  
“How long has this been going on?”  
“About seven months.”  
“God damn it.”  
“I’m sorry.”  
“It’s alright. You can’t sacrifice yourself. You’ve got Erazniel. He’d be devastated.”  
“Dan, can’t you see? The two Elikae in our relationship are also the only two Elikae who could sacrifice themselves for this cause. It’s him or me, and I don’t want it to be him.”  
“He’s probably thinking the same thing. Can you call him here?”  
“Dan-…”  
“Call him here, please.”

Evzynn sighed, closed his eyes for a few seconds, and opened them again to see that Erazniel had appeared next to him. “What’s going on?” The latter questioned.  
“I want to do it, Eraz, I’m going to do it.”  
“Do what?”  
“I’m going to sacrifice myself.”  
“No you’re not.”  
“It’s you or me and I won’t let it be you.”  
“Do I get a say in this?”  
“No, no you don’t. I’ve made my choice.”  
“You’d leave me behind.” Erazniel stated.  
“Yes, but at least you will be alive, and that’s what it’s about. You’ll grow old in a society where you can be happy for yourself. If I kill myself, the humans will be cut off from the Elikae making their decisions for them, and the Elikae will be cut off from the humans who are currently their only source of happiness. If I die, Elikae will be able to be happy for themselves. That’s a way better future for the next generation and I’m willing to give my life for it.”  
“What about me? What are you expecting me to do after your death?”  
“Go back to what you did before we met. Find a nice person, settle down, have kids, I don’t know.”  
“I have found a nice person whom I want to settle down and have kids with.”  
“But I’m not an option. In the long run I won’t mean anything to the universe anyway, people would forget me after my death anyway. This way I can at least do something with my life.”  
“I’m not letting you do this, I’m sorry. I can’t.”  
“It’s you or me, Eraz, you know it.”  
“I know. I need time to think.”

The both of them disappeared at the same time and Dan was left alone in their dimly lit kitchen with an empty mug in his hand.  
The Christmas show went by in a haze. Dan hadn’t felt carefree in a while, and as him and Phil went about doing weird and dumb things, he managed to calm his brain down and push the thoughts of the sacrifice to the back of his mind. After the show, however, they all came rushing back to him.  
Two days before Erazniel had come and told him that it was a violent mess upstairs, the immortals were desperately trying to retain the upper hand, but they were losing the fight against the still growing army. Dozens were dying every day, and the pressure to make a decision was growing. 

When Dan and Phil came home, Erazniel and Evzynn were standing in the middle of their hallway, blocking the path. Dan pulled Phil to an abrupt halt. “It’s Evzynn and Erazniel.” He explained.  
Erazniel was staring at his feet, but Evzynn was looking Dan in the eyes with a determined expression on his face, and Dan felt it coming. Knew what he was going to say when Evzynn opened his mouth. “I’m going to do it.”  
Dan saw Erazniel swallow thickly and grip onto Evzynn’s arm a bit tighter.  
Dan nodded slowly. He wanted to ask them so many questions, but Erazniel already seemed on the edge of breaking down, so he decided to dismiss all his questions but one, “When?”  
“December 31st, midnight. The humans will be able to start the new year with no one to control them but their own minds.”  
“UK time?”  
“Yes.”  
“Are you sure about this?”  
“Completely.”  
And that was that. Dan didn’t get to put up a fight, the only option he had was to quietly agree and notify Phil. 

They both called in sick to the BBC, not feeling like happily skipping around the building to prepare for their upcoming radio show. They hardly talked in the days leading up to New Year’s day. If Dan couldn’t sleep after the fight in their lounge, he surely couldn’t now. Him and Phil had picked up on their habit of sleeping in the same bed, hoping it would provide the both of them with more sleep knowing that the other was with them, but it didn’t work for either of them.

On the night of 30 to 31 December they didn’t even bother going to bed anymore. Dan had summoned Evzynn and Erazniel and the four of them were sitting on the couch in the lounge of Dan and Phil’s flat. Not long now. In just seventeen hours their number would be reduced to three. Erazniel would be left alone, left behind to live in a better world, even though he didn’t want to.  
They sat together in silence for hours and stared into the distance with dead eyes. In just a few hours time Dan would lose one of his closest friends. One of his other closest friends would lose his boyfriend. His best friend would lose a friend of his whom he’d never even seen or spoken to. Phil and Evzynn had never even communicated with each other directly, yet even for Phil Evzynn’s death was going to kick a hole in his life.

It would all be over after this. The secret Dan had been living with for the past four years would be gone and he’d only have Phil to talk to about it. One of his closest friends was going to die and he was never going to see an other one of his closest friends again, yet there was no therapist he could go to with his story. He was going to have to figure it all out for himself.  
Tired eyes crossed each other’s paths, as they sat quietly.

At half twelve Dan got a text from Percy, who asked him to come hang out with him, his girlfriend, and Bryce, but he didn’t reply.  
But it did get him thinking, that although the entire Elikae population was thinking about the Army, the immortals and the fights, the humans knew nothing. They didn’t know that they were being repressed. They didn’t know that someone was about to die for a freedom that they thought they already had.

‘It’s your life’, that’s what they all thought. It wasn’t yet, but it was about to become theirs. Just eleven more hours.  
Dan’s mind played back all the hours he spent in school, wishing the time would just hurry up already because he was bored. In school he’d spend six hours a day sitting still, doing nothing. Now he’d been sitting in the same spot for six hours and he didn’t even have the distraction of a teacher trying to teach him something, yet he wasn’t bored one bit. He was trying to saviour every last moment he had, but he felt like nothing he could do in these last hours would be enough for him the next day. No matter what he did, he’d still be mad at himself the next day for not doing something else.  
At five pm Percy texted him again, the message read “you’re missing out”, and attached was a picture of three McDonalds milkshakes. Dan threw his phone to the other side of the room.

“I’m sorry.” Dan finally spoke up at eleven pm. He was tired, hungry and cold, but he wasn’t planning on getting up any time soon.  
“What for?” Evzynn’s voice sounded croaky from the endless silence.  
“That you have to do this. For the fact that I exist and for the fact that you happened to be one of the only candidates for this because of me.”  
“I chose to, Dan. Nothing is your fault. I want to do this. Please don’t feel guilty.”  
“He chose to.” Erazniel repeated, voice soft and broken.

11:15, Evzynn had put his arm around Erazniel and the latter had started crying.

11:30, Dan felt like he had to be sick, but refused to get up.

11:45, Evzynn got out the bottle of pills he’d carefully selected. Dan only just reached the toilet when he started to throw up.

11:55, “Thank you. For everything. I honestly don’t know what to say.” Dan’s mind flashed back to his and Phil’s first VidCon, when he’d hugged Phil because he hadn’t known how to thank him. So he hugged Evzynn, buried his face in the Elik’s shoulder and cried.

11:59, “I love you, Erazniel. Please don’t forget that. But do please move on, okay? Can you promise me that?”  
“No.” Erazniel choked out.  
“I love you.” Evzynn repeated.  
“I love you too.”

12:00, Evzynn leaned over and kissed Erazniel’s lips, “Take care of yourself.” He whispered softly. Erazniel didn’t reply, but clung onto him desperately as Evzynn downed the pills.  
The ten seconds that followed were the worst of Dan’s life. He had subconsciously grabbed Phil’s hand and was now squeezing it so hard his knuckles were white.  
Evzynn sank to the floor and Erazniel followed after him, sitting down on his knees beside Evzynn’s body. He wasn’t dead yet, Dan knew. He’d taken sleeping pills so that he would fall asleep first and then die in his sleep. Erazniel pressed his fingers against Evzynn’s throat and Dan saw him biting his lip. They were all waiting for it. They knew Evzynn’s heart would give out any second now.

Dan knew it had happened when he saw Erazniel break down in front of him. He screamed and cried Evzynn’s name over and over and Dan had to repress the urge to vomit again. It had to happen now. Erazniel had to disappear. He had to go back to The Ifarn, or this would have all been for nothing.  
He didn’t know whether to scream or be relieved when he finally saw the two Elikae on the floor disappear. Evzynn had died, but not for nothing.  
Dan finally allowed himself to break down against Phil.

He’d just lost two of his friends.

He’d just lost two of his friends.

He’d just lost two of his friends.

The fireworks outside exploded, like nothing had just happened. The humans setting them off didn’t know that lighting the fireworks had been their first choices made without someone else influencing them.  
They didn’t know anything.  
And Dan wished he was one of them. Setting off fireworks outside, shouting “happy new year” at every bystander.  
He wished he didn’t know anything either.


End file.
